Article II, Section 3 of the U.S. Constitution:

“ He shall from time to time give to Congress information of the State of the Union and recommend to their Consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient. ”

This years State of the Union is going to be a little bit different than it has been in the past. Via some new technology and work from the Participatory Culture Foundation, the Address will reach a significantly larger audience.

As soon as the Barack Obama’s words leave his mouth participant’s will begin the work of transcribing them into dozens of different languages and making it possible for people all over the globe to understand and react to the speech. brought to life by new technology from Mozilla, the president will open, a sort of, interactive online forum with his address.

All of this kicks off something called “Open Election 2012″ sponsored by Mozilla, The Corporation for Public Broadcasting, PBS News Hour, and the Participatory Culture Foundation. The Goal of these organizations is to unite their resources to bring broader, more clearly understood coverage of the upcoming election campaigns and to make participation possible for people all over the globe. It’s going to become an interactive event.

This point was driven home again last night as I chatted over dinner with Alan Webber, founder and former CEO of Fast Company. Alan posed the question, “Why MUST we categorize everything as either for profit or non-profit?” He then answered himself, “This is stupid. It makes no sense. Why can’t we make money and make a difference simultaneously? The future of every business will include a foundation or non-profit arm that backs every prosperous company.”

The changes to the business model as we know it offer far more opportunity than challenges. But — and this is a big “but” here — these grand opportunities only exist for the companies that recognize them and adapt quickly.

The most prized benefit from quick adaption is increased revenue and corporate sustainability. And, by the way, you will also be doing the right thing, which will undoubtedly make your mother (and your shareholders) proud.

In most cases, the more you responsibly give back and are able to tell that story the more your company will grow. That’s the advantage of being socially engaged. Your company’s reputation will create public trust and customer brand loyalty, improve investor relations, support employee recruitment and build partnership opportunities. The key is that you must have a strong CSR media strategy which will highlight your efforts in your overall business model.

Earlier this year, Pepsi made a bold move when they opted out of buying Super Bowl ads for the first time. Pepsi is already on to the game — they saw an opportunity to gain social credibility using the would-be ad money to launch their Refresh Everything Project. The project calls for 1,000 idea submissions per month from people, businesses and non-profits to promote positive change. Ideas are judged on their merits and the prize money ranges from $5,000 to $250,000. Pepsi’s strong CSR media plan allowed them not only to capture news buzz around the Super Bowl, but it allowed them to also space out good-will news throughout the year, achieving many of the goals outlined above.

Pepsi seized an opportunity. What opportunities is your company missing? You can lead the way forward today, but need to think differently. Don’t create a strategy around the model where business and media find themselves today — think ahead.

Where will business and media be tomorrow?

Comments

"I am visiting as many companies as I can as quickly as I can (yesterday I saw two more, today I’m visiting another three) so that I can get a good bead on what I should build next and also to get some ideas of where to take my blog," he says.

Scoble tells TechCrunch he’s almost ready to unveil a new project he’s working on, but on his blog he says he can’t talk about what he’s doing next because it’s not completely decided. He does say he wants to announce something at the SXSW conference.

"Scoble continues to be on the cutting edge of new Internet technologies, sometimes taking things to an extreme," says Michael Arrington at TechCrunch, who spoke with him. "He was once briefly banned from Facebook for violating their terms of use, and we’ve (only half jokingly) called for an intervention over his excessive use of services like Twitter and Friendfeed."

Scoble will still be writing a column for Fast Company, and I assume his blog Scobleizer will continue to keep the world informed of all things Scoble.

We’re not really arguing with that ranking, mind you; it just doesn’t come as a shock.  If nothing else, the declaration echoes the Republican party’s recent designation of Google as its "official innovation provider."

On to why Google is such an innovative corporation, then.  Fast Company’s Chuck Salter writes, "The marvel of Google is its ability, after 10 years, to continue to instill a sense of creative fearlessness and ambition, even as it has grown to more than 16,000 employees."  Over a dozen Googlers then relate their own experiences with the business.

Google doesn’t have a stranglehold on innovation, though, and 49 other companies also made Fast Company’s list.  Apple and Facebook came in at numbers two and three, respectively, while Amazon placed ninth.  Microsoft ranked 41st, and the last spot went to Chinese search engine Baidu.

Congrats to everybody.  Now we’ll just watch which corporations can figure out how to move up the list in the coming year.

From what I can tell they have been live for over 1 month now, it is possible I received invites before and didn’t respond to them, along with the other 20+ invites I seem to receive to every new social networking platform.

I thought it would be worth writing a few tips, just as I did for Gooruze as there are a few gotchas, and ways to increase your benefit of using and contributing to the new Fast company site.

This isn’t a site that would interest many niche bloggers, though I dare say many of my readers who blog in related niches such as social media, technology or various forms of online marketing might benefit from using it. Think of it very much as a niched LinkedIn.

Adding Your Blog

There is the opportunity to add your blog to their list of optional feeds to include in their feed reader and have listed on profile pages.

Whatever you do, take your time when creating the description, as it supports HTML, and there doesn’t seem to be a method of editing it afterwards, at least I haven’t found one.

The first 2 or 3 lines seem to show up in general feed subscription areas, so make sure there is enough information to encourage a few clicks from potential interested users.

In addition you should include an extended profile with a few links This is important because a full description is displayed on the profile page of any person who decides to display it and sign up to your feed within Fastcompany.

From what I can see those links are search engine friendly, as you will see on my Andy Beard – Niche Marketing profile page.

You will also notice that feed descriptions are viral – everyone who adds you will also provide links from their profiles.

Fastcompany Bio and Profile

There is plenty of opportunity to get creative with your bios on Fastcompany and an opportunity for highly relevant links.

Links with anchor text can be added in the Bio section, a link without anchor text to a personal website, and even a link with anchor text to any company that you have worked for, using the company name.

Blogging Opportunity

Aaron Wall has just joined as well, not sure whether that was via an invite from Lee, or if Aaron invited Lee, and has taken the opportunity to test out the blogging system which uses Drupal.

Apparently there is the opportunity to have content promoted to the front page, though I am not sure whether that applies to the front page of "beta" or the front page of Fast Company itself.

Is there an opportunity in this?

Possibly – guest blogging has benefits if you are writing on a blog in the same or similar niche, and Fastcompany has a lot of subscribers if your content gets promoted to the front page and their RSS feeds. This might be worthwhile if you cover a particular topic in great depth on your own blog, and wish to also introduce the topic with a lighter post to a slightly wider audience.

Groups

Fastcompany has groups – to be honest doesn’t everywhere? Unless they provide an easy way to track group discussions, I am just going to ignore it for now, just like I generally end up not taking part in Facebook groups as much as I should… or maybe shouldn’t, again that is a time factor and opportunity cost.

The Scoble Effect

With Robert Scoble now working for Fastcompany, you can be sure that the site will attract a little more attention, though he will be concentrating on video content.

Fast Company Beta Conclusions

For me creating a FastCompany profile was worth a couple of hours work, and may bring some benefits in the future. I will probably add a few blog posts of a more general marketing or technology nature and see what benefit can be gained.

I am not sure if it is invite only, but if you want an invite, just ask in the comments and make sure you comment with an email address suitable for the invite to be received.

I would like to emphasise not abusing Fast Company with lots of spam links, I am sure they have some moderation in place and most of these tips will have little use if your blog doesn’t represent content they think the Fast Company readership will enjoy.

Update

Thanks to Jim from Seo Wrench as he has confirmed you can sign up without an invite.

*Originally published at AndyBeard.eu

Top blogger, social media guru, and video podcaster, Scoble will join Mansuetto Ventures–the company behind Fast Company and Inc. magazines–and create a new video channel called FastCompany.tv.

Andy Plesser has most of the details…

As he builds the network, he will continue to produce daily technology videos, much along the lines of the ScobleShow. He has the assistance of a full time producer and is looking for studio facilities in San Francisco.

In his new job, he will create and supervise a number of channels with other video creators, he told me this afternoon in phone call from San Francisco. Robert expects to have at least five new channels launched this year.

Although he will continue to own and run Scobleizer blog independently from Fast Company, he is entering into agreement with the publisher to sell advertising. This would be the first time ads, besides banners for his book, have been sold on the influential blog.

FastCompany.tv will open on March 3. In the meantime, you can read Scoble’s announcement and the official Fast Company announcement.

If you’re not already following Scoble, you should. If online video content is going to become a major part of our web use, you can be sure that Scoble will be their driving the bus!

Good luck Robert!

Comments

First of all, thanks to John Furrier, James McCormick, and the entire PodTech team. I grew a lot over the past year due to the opportunities they gave me and that turned into hundreds of interviews on ScobleShow.com.

Wednesday (today) Rocky Barbanica and I are moving to work for Mansuetto Ventures. They are the producers of Fast Company and Inc. magazines. What will we be doing? Helping to build a new, interactive, online video community called FastCompany.TV which will open on March 3.

UPDATE: Here’s the official Fast Company press release and Lynne Johnson blogged about it here.

Back when my career moves were leaked over on TechCrunch I said I was considering another option. What was it? Starting my own business. Here’s why I chose FastCompany.tv instead.

But, first let me back up and talk about what I’ve learned about the media business. Here’s the four things you need to have to see success.

1. Content. This should be obvious, but you’ll see where I’m going with this point later. Key here is to make content that no one else has. Content that’s better quality. “Special” in some way. Gets viewers access to something they couldn’t otherwise get access to.
2. Revenues. If you don’t have them, it’s hard to buy cameras, lights, microphones, or take the time to do things right. Yeah, you can bootstrap for a while like Rocketboom did in its early years, but at some point if you don’t have cash coming in you’ll need to find a real job and stop working on media production.
3. Distribution. If no one sees your videos you won’t get revenues, so getting viewers/participants is key. Now, you can either get viewers by doing stunts (like Gawker Media did at CES) or you can get it by making deals to distribute your videos into places that have high viewership. Revision3, for instance, has reportedly made deals to distribute its videos into several airplane video systems. Mansuetto’s magazines have more than a million readers, which will make it easier to get people to come visit the new network.
4. Scale. The SuperBowl has all the above three, right? But the place it really makes sense? Is part of a network. Why? Because then there’s more for audiences to engage with than just one football game a year. Also, there’s economies of scale since the camera crews can work on other stuff while they aren’t working on the Super Bowl.

As I considered job opportunities I kept these four things in mind. Could the new company we’d join deliver on all of these? How about working for myself? Could I be successful? Both Mike Arrington and Om Malik (and others) urged me to start my own company. But, when I looked in the mirror I just didn’t have that passion for doing it all myself. Why not?

1. I don’t love doing much except for interviewing and blogging and my family. I’ve run the books at UserLand Software. I hated that. I’ve tried managing people at PodTech and found that I wasn’t particularly interested in doing more of it (which is one reason why Rocky’s going to play a key role in the development/production of the network — it’s important that we build a strong team, but I’d rather focus more of my energies on getting great content than on finding and keeping great people).
2. Building a diverse set of income requires a sales crew and attention to client happiness. It’s one thing to take care of one sponsor. It’s a whole nother thing to make magic happen for a wide range of sponsors. That takes a team of professionals. I don’t have the time, nor the skills, to build a world-class sales team and if I took the time that’d cause me to take my eye off of doing my videos, which would be the life-blood of the organization.
3. Setting up a business requires a ton of other tasks. HR. Banking. Invoicing. All the other drudge work that takes time away from doing interviews, going on photowalks, reading feeds, hanging out and networking with industry leaders, etc that leads to great content.
4. Doing a business is stressful on everyone involved. Om Malik’s heart attack had an impact on me. So did Marc Orchant’s death. Life is too short and if that means I leave a few million on the table because I gave up equity in my own thing, so be it. I’m happiest when behind a camera talking with someone like Doug Engelbart or taking Patrick, my son, to MacWorld. Anything other than that I’m going to outsource, ala “the Four Hour Workweek.”
5. Brand extension is hard when running your ass off to build your own business. For instance, I want to build communities that lead to interesting events. But if I did my own business, running an event team would have to wait until I got my business on solid ground. That could be a year or more. That would mean opportunities lost. Fast Company and Inc have awesome event and marketing teams — I’ve been to their events and if I wanted to build a team like that it’d take capital, time, and talent that I don’t have.
6. Getting access to things, when running your own business, is tougher. Yeah, I can get access to a lot of things, but did Steve Jobs invite me to attend his keynote at MacWorld? No. If I was part of a bigger team with a more established brand, would it be more likely that I’d get invited? Yes.

So, why FastCompany.tv? Why not something else? Several reasons.

1. Fast Company (the magazine) has seen a resurgence in the past year. The content has gotten better. Ad sales were way up. They have new offices in New York City (I won’t be moving, rather staying in Silicon Valley).
2. The editorial team at Fast Company and Inc. Magazines is getting cover articles that few others are able to get and the whole team will drive a lot of great content that’ll show up on my show and on the network.
3. They have invested in a major new social networking site that’ll be revealed soon. Fast Company was one of the first magazines with a social network, called “The Company of Friends” and the new site, built in open-source Drupal, excited me because of the distribution and community it brings.
4. They are working on a new magazine aimed at startups, too, which obviously I’m interested in.
5. They have a sales team that’s already successful in selling to clients outside the tech industry (getting diversity is important to protect independence and also to bring fresh approaches to events and advertising).
6. They liked my participatory style of video better than other companies and want to expand it. Excited about technologies like Qik, Kyte, Seesmic, Mogulus, DotSub, etc. Other people/companies I talked with had blank stares when I talked about these technologies and how they might change the media business.
7. They have a tech team who understands how to integrate various Web technologies together. My column’s page on Fast Company , for instance, has a calendar from Upcoming.org and a feed from Google Reader integrated into it along with video interviews and other things. We’ll expand that kind of integration on the new network.

FastCompany.tv is not just me. They made a commitment to getting a great lineup of other stars in the industry to be part of the network — my show won’t be the only one on FastCompany.tv and we’ll be adding more shows even after our March 3 start date.

Anyway, what’s next? FastCompany.tv will start on March 3. Between now and then we’re working on finding some great content (I’m working with editors of the magazines, as well as looking for the hottest emerging tech companies along with leading business executives/strategists and visionaries). I’ll be going to the World Economic Forum and then to LIFT in Europe to find stories that are outside the United States and the “tech bubble.”

We’ll have lots of surprises too, and will be stepping up the quality of my shows — Rocky’s already working on that as we speak. But most importantly I haven’t seen a business network that treats viewers as partners. See, most of the TV (either mainstream, like CNBC, or “new” like that from Revision3 or elsewhere) treats viewers as, well, viewers. The thing is that the new technology lets you PARTICIPATE with the people who are in front of the camera. You got a taste of this while I was walking around CES with a cell phone and you could ask questions WHILE I WAS FILMING LIVE. That really changes the equation a lot and that’ll be a key differentiator on FastCompany.tv. After all, if we’re talking to Fast Companies, why shouldn’t they answer YOUR questions live as well as mine?

Anyway, to wrap this all up. This was the best “win-win” for you, for me, my employers, and for my sponsors. That’s why I’m proud to be a member of the Fast Company and Inc. families today and I’m looking forward to participating with you on March 3 on fastcompany.tv.

In between now and March 3? I’ll continue to post videos (yesterday alone I posted about a dozen videos on my Qik channel from MacWorld conference) and other items I see in the industry on my blog on scobleizer.com.

Comments

My first column will probably mirror my new speech I’m working on, titled “Living in a Google World.”

For both I’d love to hear how your business is using, or being affected by, Google. For instance, Printing for Less’ CEO, Andrew Field, told me how he used Google ads to get new customers.

If you have a story about how Google is changing how you do business, please post it here in comments or email it to me. Thanks!

This is a big thrill. Fast Company has 700,000 circulation, which will bring a whole new audience to my blog.

Comments

Tag:

I’m pleased to note I’m one of the 65 volunteers selected to post and comment throughout the two-day Web event on Monday, August 8 and Tuesday, August 9.

My posts will NOT focus on blogs. Heath Row, Fast Company’s Editorial and Community Director, asks “please try not to blog about blogging, per se. Enough people do that already.” Posts will tie back to Fast Company’s core themes-business, leadership, innovation, and change.

BlogJam 2004 was a blast. My posts from the 2004 event included a metric-focused piece entitled, Marketing with Both Sides of the Brain and a lightly theoretical post on Martha Stewart & KFC that, a year later, turned out to be dead wrong.

Be sure to stop by FC Now during next week’s festivities and join the conversation. The number of contributors has nearly tripled for this year’s event so there should be plenty of interesting content.

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Kevin Dugan is the author of the popular Strategic Public Relations blog. Kevin is Director of Marketing Communications for FRCH Design Worldwide.

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