Dennis Howlett, full time blogger for ZDNet and AccMan, is not only a funny guy, he's also not afraid to pull any punches. You can follow him on Twitter to see what I'm talking about. The first time I met Dennis was at one of the weekly BBQ's that Mzinga put on during the summer months last year. Friend, Chris Brogan (interview coming), brought along Dennis and Francine McKenna (interview also coming) and we all hung out for a couple of hours and discussed the meaning of life during this podcast.
With that as a backdrop, enjoy Dennis's answers to the questions in the Experts in the Industry series:
In one sentence, please describe what you do and why you're good at it.
I communicate and have a natural love for language and its power
How did you get into the world of online community, social media or social marketing?
Through an identified need to bring the professional world from which I came into the 21st century.
If you had $10 million to invest in one company and one company only based on their use of "social," which company would it be and why?
That's hard because I don't think we're at a point where anyone has really worked out which 'moving parts' are the right ones to assemble. Some companies have pieces of the puzzle - I just don't think we've got 'enough.' My context is enterprise so I have a different perspective to many others.
Which business leader, politician or public figure do you most respect?
Jeff Nolan of Newsgator. A great guy, competitive, fiercely loyal and a smart operator.
Would you join a toothpaste community? Why?
Hah - funny that - I need a ton of dental work right now. Ask me in 3 months
Freeform – here's where you can riff on anyone or anything – good or bad. Or just share a pearl of wisdom.
With my enterprise hat on I think that most who are playing in this game are missing a massive part of what needs to happen. Until there is serious engagement with semantics experts, process engineers and social psychologists that have deep organizational experience, much of what we are seeing today will be wasted. That's because the real changes that need to occur are internal as that's the way you change focus to the outside.
What a nice side-step on the question about investing in a company that is social. This is a question about guessing who will most likly survie and thrive in in the coming developments. It's a quesiton about the future. The question wasn't about who has all of the right moving parts today.
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