Q&A: Chris Brogan of chrisbrogan.com and New Marketing Labs

By thinksocial on May 12, 2009 | 205No Commentshttp://think-social.org/qa-chris-brogan-of-chrisbrogan-com-and-new-marketing-labs.htmQ%26amp%3BA%3A+Chris+Brogan+of+chrisbrogan.com+and+New+Marketing+Labs2009-05-12+16%3A00%3A18thinksocial

Chris Brogan

CHRIS BROGAN
President of New Marketing Labs

Twitter: http://twitter.com/chrisbrogan

Chris Brogan is President of New Marketing Labs, a new media marketing agency, as well as the home of the New Marketing Summit conferences and New Marketing Bootcamp educational events. He works with large and mid-sized companies to improve online business communications like marketing and PR through the use of social software, community platforms, and other emerging web and mobile technologies.

TS: In what ways do you think social media is useful in the public interest?

Chris Brogan: Social tools are great for connecting people with simple conversational information at the point of need. Twitter for emergency experiences, for instance, is helpful. The Baltimore, MD police department is using Twitter to point out dangerous events in the city, as an early warning system. Facebook isn’t probably the best tool for this as it’s still too closed off.

TS: How do you think companies and governments should maximize the potential?

CB: I think companies and governments have an opportunity to use the new communications methods of Twitter-like burst information and video like Seesmic and YouTube as a means of building more than static websites and boiler plate info. What we the people tend to most need from government websites is information given to us in a way we understand. Having human two-way interactions there is a much better opportunity than just static FAQ dumping sites.

TS: What developments, technological or otherwise, are you most excited about in the field?

CB: I’m excited that tools like Socialcast.com and Yammer.com allow people to build their own smaller-focus platforms of Twitter-like interaction. I think these tools are the Ning.com (white label social network) of the micro communications space.

TS: Where do you see it in two years?

CB: In two years, I see more disaggregation around large “commons” sites, and more diving into smaller groups of more meaningful interaction.