Buy PunditMom's book or I WILL HUNT YOU DOWN

Joanne "PunditMom" Bamberger has a book coming out called Mothers of Intention: How Women and Social Media are Revolutionizing Politics in America.  You should buy it. And then you should read it.  And then you should do whatever Joanne tells you to do, because she's going to rule the world someday and you probably want to be on her good side now. (OK, kidding.)  (But not really.)

This book is important - and not simply because Joanne is more than qualified to write this book as an online mom with an impressive background in government and politics. (She was deputy director of communications at the Securities Exchange Commission, you know.)  It's important because she uses the book to amplify the voices of people the beltway chattering class too often ignore - "everyday" women from different walks of life in America. Seriously - read the essays Joanne compiled in the book and then think about what you see on cable "news" shows or hear on talk radio.

I've spent some time in DC myself, so I'm a bit cynical.  I hope the beltway crowd won't view this book and the perspectives of the women in it as an "I care about politics too" human interest story.  I hope they will take this book as a wake-up call.  I think Joanne and her contributors are telling the politicians (and their sycophants) that while the jobs they have are important, they're wasting everyone's time on irrelevant and potentially harmful flights of fancy.   Moms are life's true decision makers, and they don't have time to waste on distractions.  If moms have more input in political decisions, our politics will be more substantive and our policies will be more effective.

I hope you read this book - not simply because Joanne is someone I've known for years, or because she's helped me out with work from time to time.  I hope you read this book because we all need to do better at understanding what women want and what they care about - and not just for the purposes of selling moms stuff.  Finally, I hope you read this book because for me it's personal.  I was raised by a "pundit mom."  I'm married to another "pundit mom."  For years they've spoken up to help their families, and for as long as I can remember, strong political forces have been aligned against them.  Their actions have helped shape who I am.  In a very real sense, Joanne is speaking up for them and for all the pundit moms out there.

Oh, and the writers she features in the book are pretty amazing too.

President Obama On The "Bloggers vs. Journalists" Question: I DON'T CARE

Last night President Obama held his first press conference as President in prime time. All the usual suspects were present - Helen Thomas was as feisty as ever. ABC, CNN, Reuters, Bloomberg, NBC, all the titans of media were there.

Sitting in the front row was Sam Stein of Huffington Post, who was called on to ask a question. Also present was Joe Sudbay of Americablog.

No, they're not the first bloggers to attend a White House press conference. But I think they're the first ones who attended in such a high-profile way and nobody made a big deal that they were there. By calling on Stein, the Obama Administration sent a very clear message that whether you call bloggers journalists or not, their impact is real and the White House needs to reach their readers.

The press conference also demonstrated that some in the mainstream media might want to look in the mirror before they charge that bloggers are "unprofessional" or can't be taken seriously.

Before you take a look at the transcript here, take a look at these two questions and try to guess which was asked by a blogger and which was asked by the Washington Post:

Today, Sen. Patrick Leahy [D-Vermont] announced that he wants to set up a truth and reconciliation committee to investigate the misdeeds of the Bush administration. He said that, before you turn the page, you have to read the page first.

Do you agree with such a proposal? And are you willing to rule out right here and now any prosecution of Bush administration officials?

OR:

What is your reaction to Alex Rodriguez's admission that he used steroids as a member of the Texas Rangers?

Now, you could argue that both questions are "off topic" at a press conference designed to spotlight the economy and the President's proposed stimulus package. But seriously, A-Rod? You get one chance to ask the President of the United States a question at a time when the economy is in free-fall, the armed forces are engaged with the enemy in two countries and rest of the world is hanging on every word the President utters, and you ask him about a juiced infielder?

So are bloggers journalists? Like President Obama, I don't care. They're important, and that's good enough for me. But if you're looking for opinions from the bloggers themselves, Greg Sargent asked Markos "Daily Kos" Moulitsas about the newfound clout of the blogosphere and the attention bloggers are getting from the White House, and he said simply

We are media, and should be treated as communications outlets.

Notice he said MEDIA and not JOURNALIST. Maybe because he sees the difference, but I suspect it's because he realizes the difference just doesn't matter as much anymore. Yes, you absolutely need to know if you're dealing with a journalist or not when you work in communications, but media is media. I think John "Americablog" Aravosis added more detail to where the bloggers - at least the liberal political bloggers - are coming from:

While we are media, we're more than media. We are activists and advocates too - akin to the ACLU, the unions, the gay lobby, and more. We're not even partisan media, such as the Nation, in my view. We're far more activist-oriented, and, I'd argue, many of us are long-time political operatives as well (though I've also worked as a professional journalist).

All that is to say that bloggers are a bit of a mutt, and should be treated as such (after all, am I a blogger, a liberal activist, a 24-year-Washington-insider, a gay rights leader, a prominent Greek-American, or a journalist?) . If you corner us off with the mainstream media, you'll be missing out on harnessing our advocacy. But if you treat us simply as activists, you miss out on our media megaphone. In the end, the one thing that would hamper Jesse's job, in my view, is to treat him as a techie. Blog outreach long-since graduated from the days when it was the domain of the computer guy. The computer guy is a genius, but he's not a political genius. The blog outreach person in any organization has to have political and media savvy, and good 'ole activist/organizing sense. He has to be multi-disciplinary, and thus needs to straddle several departments, with a leg in media, political, and even tech (I know, 3 legs).

And most importantly, he has to be connected to what's going on in the White House. It's of no use, to us or the WH, having someone work with us who isn't really authorized to speak on behalf, negotiate on behalf, of the administration. We are here to help, when our interests coincide. But we need someone who's truly part of the WH team, and not simply passing us press releases.

To me, this is why you can't just treat "blogger outreach" as if it were just another PR or marketing exercise. Bloggers don't exist for the convenience of flacks and we shouldn't expect them to adhere to a set of rules simply because they're familiar or convenient to us. They have special interests and special needs. Bloggers have their own turf and it's our job to adapt to them, not the other way around.

Iain Dale's rankings

Iain Dale is a popular British Conservative blogger and pundit who has a penchant for cataloguing and ranking the British political blogosphere. He's published a new book with this year's rankings, and offered up much of that information on his blog.

My company was fortunate enough to sponsor the book featuring Mr. Dale's popular list, and a number of my colleagues have offered some insightful essays that were included in the book. They include an introduction to the list and some thoughts on its relevance in British politics, a fact-filled piece on "why blogs matter," and a thoughtful piece on the the role blogs play in French politics. I even took a crack at describing the state of the American political blogosphere in 2007.

I realize that a book is a curious medium to describe the blogosphere. Part of the fun will be going back to it in the future and see how things have changed.

As for the rankings, I've always believed that where you "rank" isn't really as important as what you do. In social media, the most relevant audience or community is always more important than the largest one. I will say this, however - Mr. Dale's rankings have already sparked some interesting discussions and great fun. People are talking about how technology influences politics and vice-versa. Those are wonderful conversations, and Mr. Dale deserves great kudos.

In praise of being brazen

I was very pleased to open up my copy of Business Lexington today and read Stephen Turnbull's review of Penelope Trunk's book Brazen Careerist: The New Rules For Success.

I'll admit this up front: I despise self-help books. To me they're almost always just somebody who's never worked a day in his life making up a new vocabulary to essentially re-state the obvious, and spelling out a 7-step "power plan for spectacular greatness" that is so vague you don't even know if you're doing it right. (Step 7 is invariably, "buy my next book.")

So I was a little skeptical about this book. But I've read Penelope's blog and her column for some time now (I'm an avid Boston Globe reader), and I've even had the chance to pitch her a few times on work-related stuff. I first learned about Linkedin by reading her blog, and literally within a day of signing up a few college friends that I had lost track of contacted me.

I really liked the book because it's not so much about "your life sucks and I can fix it with words you won't find in a dictionary," but a reflection of how the values of work and life from my generation are affecting the decisions we make. I relate to this book. I've already had careers in health care administration, politics, and now communications. Not all of my career choices were smart or particularly successful, but we all need to make mistakes to learn.

The confidence-building message I kept hearing in her book, chapter after chapter: you're in control. You can control how you're perceived in the workplace. You can improve your life by making non-traditional but enriching choices. You can manage a difficult boss. You can actually go into business for yourself more easily than advance in many big companies. You can stop yourself from asking stupid questions in job interviews by preparing properly. These are the values I see in the most successful people in my generation -- they are independent and they're not afraid to make the choices that people in the generations before us wouldn't even consider.

I was also particuarly struck by what she had to say about authenticity, "the buzzword of the new millenium." In my business of online communication and social media, people are rushing to assert their "guru" status before the field is even adequately defined. They're not listening very much. I've written about this before.

I think the people who do online communications best - at least the people in this field I respect the most - understand what they know and what they don't. The more "traditional" practitioners of communications have experience and perspectives we should appreciate and respect, not reject as yesterday's way of doing things.

The good news is social media and blogs like Penelope's expose this generation to perspectives and ideas many of our parents and grandparents never had a chance to see. The tools give us access to the information; the burden is on us to learn from it.

Penelope says it better than I can in her book, and as far as I'm concerned her idea applies to much more than work:

The real work of authenticity is not just knowing yourself, but taking the time to understand where other people are coming from and to respect them for that.

Well done, Ms. Trunk.