Experts in the Industry: Chris Brogan (63 of 45)

WOW. What a pleasure it is to have today's "expert" grace the Stroutmeister blog. Yes, I'm talking about Mr. Chris Brogan, one of the nicest, hardest working guys in social media. During the day, he runs a company called New Marketing Labs. In his spare time, he does a little blogging here and there, helps orchestrate the Inbound Marketing Summit events and still manages to find time to assist with one of his pet projects (co-founded with Chris Penn) called Podcamp.

I probably don't need to tell you much more about Chris since he's somewhat ubiquitous in the socialsphere (find him Twitter here). If you want to hear Chris' melodious voice in addition to reading the answers to Experts in the Industry questions, feel free to head over here. Otherwise, here goes:

In one sentence, please describe what you do and why you’re good at it.
I equip companies with strategies and skills to improve their Internet marketing efforts, and I'm good at it because I know how to speak human instead of geek.

How did you get into the world of online community, social media or social marketing?
I've been at it before it was a world. I was into bulletin board services in the 1980s, then AOL, then Usenet, and all the other waves of online communication. I was in it because I was passionate about the ability to connect with humans from outside my proximity.

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?
I'd give my money to Federated Media, because I think they're building some of the best content marketing projects out there, and that these projects are leading the way in how brands can build good will and community around a content channel.

Which business leader, politician or public figure do you most respect?
I respect Dr. Stephen R. Covey for his work in educating people to be principle-centered leaders. His popular book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People was (is) a cornerstone of my own personal success.

Would you join a toothpaste community? Why?
No. What the hell would we talk about? Brushing techniques? No thanks.

Freeform – here’s where you can riff on anyone or anything – good or bad. Or just share a pearl of wisdom.
Someone will crack the nut on combining the physical world with the web, and it's not going to be Linden Labs. With Google's maps and their other projects, I could see a fast-moving project that would allow us to build the Internet as a spacial construct, as well as just a data construct. I'm not actively aiding to this process, but I hope I'm spurring smarter minds than mine on to thinking about the possibilities of annotating the world and storing data in geospacial patterns where relevant, as opposed to just as data.