I recently had the opportunity to speak at the first Personalization Summit in Mountain View, CA. I was on a panel called “Personalization: Why its Happening Now.” Since I “Evernoted” some of my thoughts in preparation for our panel, I figured I would post an excerpt here in the hopes of getting others perspectives and opinions on the personalized world that is emerging very quickly. Below are some of my notes on the first, high level question we discussed:

How will the world be more personalized in five years?

From a marketing perspective, we have been in the evolution of personalization for years, and even so we are still at the beginning of what I think will be a HIGHLY personalized world in the very near future. Like anything else, it just takes time to get there, because in my mind all parties involved in the personalization revolution must be aligned, and clearly there are still many moving parts around this.

The obvious advancements in personalization in online marketing will continue in the areas of personalizing website experiences, email marketing, social media properties and of course one of the biggest, mobile. I think those three channels – email, social and mobile will be the most active in accelerating the personalization revolution. We are in a world now, where data is BIG. Think about the amount of data that is being generated every single day. Every web visit, every “like”, every “tweet”, every “check in”, etc they all say something about us.

The obvious advantages for personalizing marketing are clear – these channels are delivering incredible ROI, and the data backs up the fact that the more relevant i.e. personalized the message, the better the overall conversion rate. Its simple, think about the conversion rate on a highly segmented daily deal email (Which really hasn’t started yet, outside of location segmentation), or taking the amazon shopping experience to the next level. Now, and in the future, a lot of this will be driven by purchasing intent / peers / influence from a consumers social graph.

Even some of these channels are beginning to go through a personalization revolution – think about the mobile social network Path with its 50 person friend limit – its personalizing the social network. Where facebook is really a list of friends, Path is a network of people you really care about.

We are also going to see a lot of personalization in the offline world as well. There will be a level of personalization on so many things that are just starting – think about travel, auto, clothing, banking, etc.. you are starting to see all of these industries and markets are beginning to personalize products and services in the general sense. One example I discussed was the loyalty program for Kimpton Hotels, as a member when I go to any of their properties, I know when I check in they know I want a high floor, away from the elevator, a certain type of pillow, and the NY Times & Wall St Journal at the door in the morning. Everytime I visit a Kimpton, they simply say “We have your InTouch number here on file” and I know the experience will be the same – that is personalized travel.

Personalization clearly has its advantages. Today, think about how we are constantly being bombarded by media waste that is irrelevant to us. Imagine a world where there is very little to no media waste? It wont be in 5 years but in 5 years there will be a lot less of it.

I also think that more and more brands will continue to shift to implementing personalized communication preferences for consumers. I am talking about the uber preference center / ultimate in personalization across all channels. Let the consumer be in control over what messages they get, on what channel (email, mobile, social, etc), and on what frequency.

Challenges:

The challenges for a streamlined personalized world are vast, and we are seeing lots of moving parts as I mentioned earlier. One of the main issues is that there is data all over the place on consumers, and they are not in control of it. Consumers should be able to own and potentially even monetize their own data, almost the same way they should be able to ultimately control how they are communicated to as I mentioned above.

We are seeing a lot of new innovation and even industries trying to tackle the issue – check out Personal.com for example. This new startup offers consumers “data vaults” that you can share with whoever you want – friends, family, or companies. Once you link up things like this to data exchanges, where the consumer is in control of what they want or are looking for, it becomes a very personalized world. Probably not 5 years out, but I think that this may be where it is going. The question is can there be one place where the consumer controls all of their data?

Privacy & Compliance:

As mentioned, a big issue is that there is so much data about consumers in SO many places. There is no true over site, so that’s one of the nuts that has to be cracked. If industries don’t self regulate on issues like this, then the government steps in and regulates the industry. The bottom line is that the federal government is getting involved and proposing various regulation around this space.

There are obviously large threats that need to be considered, outside of general security, there is also a high risk of identify theft and being able to reconstruct an identity from a variety of data sources, among many others.

In my opinion, we are going to need to go through a real consumer education process on personal data online and make it simple for people to understand. To date, consumers don’t know whats going on out there, and are continuously not included in the conversation. The consumer issues don’t only lie with facebook privacy concerns with 3rd parties. There is a much bigger picture out there. I am not sure how it will all play out but one thing is for sure, personalization is inevitable, and we are only at the beginning stages of its evolution, and its creating a whole new horizons of companies in the space.

Those are some of my thoughts on the future of personalization. I would love to hear what you think and expand on this. Thoughts, opinions, rants in the comments below please. Thanks for reading.

This week, I am super pumped about Podcamp Boston 2, the event that started it all! Event founders Christopher S Penn and Chris Brogan, along with an incredible team of organizers are bringing this revolutionary new media unconference to us all for the second time.

As a supporter and sponsor of the very first Podcamp last year, I am blown away by the sheer growth of the event. Last year if I recall correctly, there were about 300 attendees, and the event was held at Bunker Hill Community College in Boston. Now, just 12 months later, (and many other Podcamps around the world later), the original Podcamp is back, and this time is sporting the Boston Convention Center as its venue with over 1200 registered attendees to date! Incredible growth and momentum.

Here are the facts:

Who: All of YOU! As the folks who started this whole movement say, this is YOUR conference. YOU make it.

What: PodCamp Boston 2 is the new media community UnConference that helps connect people interested in blogging, podcasting, social networks, video on the net, and new media together for three days to learn, share, and grow their new media skills.

Where: The Boston Convention Center (and related venues for social activities)

When: Friday October 26th – Sunday Oct 28th

As a new media evangelist I can tell you that this is one incredible event to attend. If you are up and around the Boston area, or can hop a quick plane or train to get to the city, this event will not let you down. The best part is, its FREE for everyone!

Blue Sky Factory, is happy to be once again supporting Podcamp Boston as a Bronze sponsor. I will also be bringing up two copies of my new book “The Business Podcasting Book” to give away. In what, way, shape or form though, I have no idea… yet

The Podcamp Boston team also put together an incredible guide for the event which you can download here. Check it out.

I hope to see you on Friday / Sat (I will be heading back to Baltimore EARLY on Sunday so will miss that day). Touch base if you are going to be in Boston. Have a great Podcamp.

Dave Winer is playing around with linking 200k audio files to his Twitter account (Twittergrams). I am digging it.

Dave threw it out as a proof of concept and Tom Morris responds. Good stuff, watch it grow.

Check it out.

You gotta love it. Here is a hilarious video on the Mac or PC saga

Kindly put out by this crew.

“I’m a right clicka, I’m an iBook flippa, Macs & PC’s no fight gets bigga”

Earlier this year I sat down with Keith, our guru designer, and Jarrod from our kick ass PR firm, and came up with a series of ads that had a theme around marketing like a “Rockstar.” We ran with this in early February and started our campaign on Marketing Vox’s website. The concept also stemmed from the fact that we had won a great new account, Signatures Network, who works with over 150 of the worlds most popular rock stars.

Currently, our platform is pumping out emails for Justin Timberlake, Ozzy Osbourne, Tom Petty, Def Leppard, Motley Crue and ZZ Top just to name a few. We are obviously pretty psyched about it. So we decided to build an ad campaign around getting folks to “email like a rockstar.” You can see one of our ads below:

Back in March we also went to the Marketing Sherpa Email Summit and exhibited. In the event brochure we took out a half page ad which had the similar message. You can see that here.

So why the blog? Well I think everyone hates to see when their ideas and concepts are hijacked. In particular ideas around marketing and advertising. We first saw a similar theme with a web analytics company do an ad mentioning being a “rock star.” We all laughed and brushed it off, but recently, very recently a direct competitor in our very specific industry of email marketing service providers, has based the theme of their website and their current ad campaign on “achieving rockstar status” and how their app turns people into “marketing rockstars.”

Its sad to see the lack of originality out there for new campaigns. Sorry to call it out like this guys and gals, but I have to. We came up with and implemented the “Email Like a Rockstar” concept and campaign.

Can we please try to respect each others creativity just a little bit?

Wow, what a kick ass find by Michael G! If you are a big time music lover like myself, or have had any experience in the music industry then you have heard of Bill Graham, arguably the best concert promoter to ever walk the planet. This site, Wolfgangs Vault is a dedication to all of Bill’s concerts and is not only chock full of all of the “swag” that went along with the times, t-shirts, posters, etc, but has crystal clear streaming recordings of some of the best live music ever. I am listening to the featured show on the home page, Black Sabbath, 8/5/75 from Convention Hall in Asbury Park, NJ, its so clean. This site is a gem. There are currently 310 live shows available for free download.

Bill was a personal inspiration for myself back when I was in the concert promoting game. I remember reading with vigor, “Bill Graham Presents,” the story of Bill’s life which ended tragically in a helicopter crash in 1991. What an individual and what a story. Bill was the cornerstone of rock and roll from the 60′s and beyond, building up acts such as the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, and Janis Joplin among just a few. He opened the famous music venues, Fillmore East & West, and went on to produce mega events like the first Live Aid along with Bob Geldof. Bill was a class act, check out this site which covers so many aspects of his works.

One of our clients Executive Biz is hosting a conference next Wednesday in NoVa (Northern Virginia) dubbed “The New New Internet: Web 2.0 for Business.” Registrations are open up to 350 attendee’s, and they still have a few seats left. I am looking forward to attending as this should prove to be a very interesting day.

The event will feature panels like “Are “mashups” viable as a way to consume enterprise software?”, and “What’s the business significance of Social Networking and “Social Search”?

Keynote speakers include the following individuals, check out the list below:

* Michael Arrington, TechCrunch
* Jason Goldberg, Jobster
* Dion Hinchcliffe, Hinchcliffe & Company
* Andrew P. McAfee, Harvard Business School
* Michael Platt, Microsoft
* Rajen Sheth, Google

Drop me a line if you are going.

Interviews_in_halls_Podcamp

Originally uploaded by dberlind.

This past weekend I attended Podcamp up in Boston. I have nothing but good things to say about my experience. Chris Penn, Chris Brogan and the rest of the crew did an outstanding job of organizing the event, hats off to you guys. I hear Podcamp Boston 2 is already in the planning phase

There is lots of media and photos of the event all over the web, so just search on the tags podcamp or podcampboston2006 to check it out.

I met lots of interesting people, learned lots of new things, and had good times with all. In this photo, I am interviewing Tom Morris, who is currently working on some VERY interesting mashups that will be coming out soon. I will post the interview soon.

I am looking forward to the Podcast Academy and Portable Media Expo later this month. See some of you out there as well.

This week I decided I would participate in Podcamp Boston on September 9-10. Oddly enough, before I had even heard about the event I was planning on being in Boston from the 7th – 10th on business, and also tagging along for the weekend while my wife attends an aromatherapy conference. So, what better way to spend a Saturday and Sunday then meeting some new and interesting people while talking about the new media revolution

The plan and schedule work out great. So after some really early morning fishing with a couple of friends on Saturday, I will be heading over to Podcamp. One of the main things that caught my interest about Podcamp, is the unconference format of the event. Podcastercon was the last event I attended of this style, and I truly enjoyed the raw energy and spontaneous element of the event. I wound up meeting a ton of great people, all of which I am still in active contact with today.

Since I am attending, I have been considering proposing a session to do a little warm up for the upcoming Podcast Academy which will take place later in the month in California. Maybe we can do a session on the ways in which podcasting will be adopted by the corporate and commercial world?

In addition, I have decided that my company, Blue Sky Factory will also be contributing to some of the various initiatives to help support the event. Podcamp Co-founder Chris Brogan of Grasshopper New Media sent me a list of opportunities to help out with, and we are more than willing to help support the efforts of Chris and the rest of the crew who have been working hard to make this event a reality.

If your going to Podcamp drop me a line or a comment. I look forward to seeing and meeting you all.

What does the future of permission based communications look like in the next 24 months?

As I ask myself this question, I think of the technologies that I believe will have the greatest impact on the way we, as consumers, receive information. These considerations include email, RSS, and SMS. To me, these mediums, although all of them not fully mature, pose the greatest opportunity for an integrated permission based communications platform.

First and foremost, it is important to understand where each of these mediums are in their individual evolution, before we can think about the ways that they will interconnect as a universe of multi-channel communication. For some of you, this information may seem basic, but I think that it is important for every reader to have a base understanding of each medium.

1. Email

Email is by far the most mature medium in the mix. Simply stated, it is one of the most effective ways for any organization to communicate with their customers on a loyalty and retention level. Jakob Neilsen recently posted the second leg of an ongoing research project that once again concludes that “Email newsletters are the best way to maintain customer relationships on the Internet.” A bold yet true statement. Email is a huge part of the way we communicate now and will be well into the future. Email is integrated into our daily lives, providing us a medium to communicate with individuals and organizations from every aspect of our lives. In my opinion, email is being taken for granted, thats how instilled it is in our culture. Inbox’s are not going anywhere, and chances are we will most likely see some interesting developments in the future regarding email deliverability & technology. Think email 2.0.

2. RSS (Really Simple Syndication)

Although RSS has been around for quite some time, it is only now rapidly going mainstream. The medium began to emergea few years back with the blogging revolution. The idea is simple, RSS feeds are XML files that allow content to be syndicated across the internet, hence the acronym Really Simple Syndication. Most people, like myself, began consuming RSS feeds using readers like Bloglines. Essentially, the beauty of RSS is that it allows you to easily and effortlessly “subscribe” to various content, and whats even better is that users do not receive any spam or struggle with any deliverability problems.

To put things in perspective, RSS now supports a variety of formats, text, HTML, audio and video. For example, as it relates to blogs, I can go out and subscribe to the 175 or so blogs that I read via their individual RSS feed, and then read all of them in a separate application called a reader. When a particular blog that I am subscribed to is updated, I am alerted in my reader and from there I can scan the content or click through back to the site if I chose too. This is much more efficient than going out to 175 individual sites to read the latest posts.

An alternative to using a reader for RSS, is using an application that translates RSS to email. This is the most simple method for users to subscribe to RSS content, and it is currently having a big impact in the widespread consumption of RSS feeds. It works like this, instead of having to go to another application like a news reader, the blog content that I am subscribed to comes right to my email inbox. You can choose to get individual posts mailed to you, or a daily digest of all posts for active blogs. Check out RSSfwd for a great implementation of this. Also of note, is the fact that Outlook 2007 will have the plumbing of RSS built into it, making subscribing through the email client simple and straightforward.

I group audio and video into the RSS bucket because I truly believe that RSS will be the next mainstream syndication technology encompassing text /HTML (already addressed) as well as audio and video. We already see this happening all over the web. With the release of RSS 2.0, these XML files are now able to attach audio and video files to them, known as “enclosures.” This is where the birth of podcasting originated from. While this is all still very much in its infancy in terms of mass adoption, it is growing at an astounding rate.

The addition of audio and video syndication via RSS encompasses all podcasts and video podcasts, or vlogs (video blogs). There are more and more podcasts and vlogs popping up everyday. RSS is growing fast. The growth of podcasting and vlogs has largely been driven by the independent content producers, however now we are starting to see the adoption of the medium by corporations. This truly opens up an entirely unique way to communicate with customers. It also offers new media opportunities for organizations of all sizes. Many vertical industries are beginning to explore new marketing initiatives using RSS.

3. SMS (Short Message Service a.k.a Text Messaging)

SMS is much more integrated into corporate marketing communications in Asia and in Europe. In the USA we primarily use SMS to text message people we know. Not for long though, SMS is quickly becoming a part of marketing plans everywhere. As with every medium, the key with SMS is to ensure it is 100% permission based. You want to receive unsolicited text messages on your mobile phone as much as you want to receive the next email spam promoting Viagra. That said, with permission built around SMS, and the massive adoption of mobile technology (phones, Smart Phones, PDA’s, etc), this opens a channel that can be used for many effective communications for business.

Every medium listed above I believe will have a big part in the future permission based marketing platforms of the future. That said, I do know of a couple of companies who are offering platforms with all three mediums integrated into them, but the offerings do not provide a seamless integration from both a user and publisher perspective (at least not from what I have seen). This is what I am talking about in terms of functionality and usability, a one stop shop solution for integrating your customer’s communication preferences and have a powerul interface from which to publish your various corporate and marketing communications.

These 3 core mediums will have an increasing role in the way businesses communicate with their customers and prospects. The various deployments of technology platforms that allow organizations to manage their communications should be a very interesting evolution.