I’m going to start a blog series on current speakers worth watching and begin with Mitch Joel, author of the bestselling Six Pixels of Separation (what a great title!), prolific blogger under the same name, and frequent public speaker on the subject of social media and marketing. Mitch’s blog is one that I never miss, because he’s always onto the trends and always saying something interesting.
If you’re new to the web and social media, Six Pixels of Separation should be your first stop. Mitch explains the basics – and some advanced stuff – in clear, compelling language. He argues for consistency, adding value, honesty, and speaking like a real human being – and he brings all those essential virtues to his own approach to marketing and the web.
You can catch Mitch speaking here at a recent social media conference, and he’s worth watching for his speaking style as well as what he’s saying. (It's a 4-part video; I've just linked to part one. You can catch the rest on YouTube.) Mitch has a very relaxed, conversational manner, which fits his subject matter and his persona perfectly. The man and the message work comfortably together. Note how well he works the room without wandering too much. He makes it look easy – and of course it isn’t. The match of the casual, comfortable style along with the message – that he’s a ‘presentist’, not a futurist, works very well.
For an always-thoughtful take on the new cyber world of marketing, Mitch Joel is your guy.
I had the pleasure of being in the audience for this presentation, and I can say that Mitch worked the room very well – the audience was keyed in to his message, and there was an overall positive, energized vibe to the room. Mitch knew his audience, but moreso he knew what was of interest and importance to the audience. There was very little if any preachiness
or lecture-ishness – rather, it felt like an open, honest conversation. There was even a little bit of controversy tossed in when Mitch made a statement along the lines that he would not hire someone straight out of college to do marketing strategy at his firm, because they simply would not have the requisite experience to succeed and he prefers not to put people in positions where they will likely struggle and fail. This visibly upset some of the younger audience members, and Mitch was called out for his statement in real time on Twitter. To his credit, he directly engaged one of the “offended” audience members the next day at the conference in a live back-and-forth on the mic, resulting in an interesting dialogue where both sides were heard and, in the end, appreciated.
Thanks for the comment, and the further insight into Mitch’s handling of his controversial comment. I wondered how that one went over! Glad to hear that in the end it led to a good exchange.
Nick, Mitch’s pace was much too fast, and he used “sort of” as fillers, at least twice. I would point this out to your readers, so they know that while Mitch is eloquent and highly rated, even he can improve.
Hi, Michelle —
Thanks for your comment. I don’t agree that Mitch spoke too fast, but of course tastes vary. I found him easy to follow, as do apparently most of his audiences.
And we all need to be on the lookout for ‘filler’ words. Those aren’t a deep problem unless they get in the way of meaning, and I don’t think they did here. But of course a speaker is more charismatic if he/she speaks without them.