I have blogged quite a bit about companies, tools and ideas related to tech PR/marcom, but thought it was time to get a little more personal. And by getting personal, I mean both in the content and the delivery.

In my first venture into using video for this blog, I discuss a few things I’ve been slaving away on for my freelance work and some other tech (and non-tech) things I’m doing just for fun. It’s a short little video and I hope you enjoy it.

Starring:

• Economic Stimulus Draft Plan and Tech
• Yahoo Pipes
• Blinkx
• Seesmic
• Vimeo
• Viddler
• Will Ferrell on Broadway

What I’ve Been Up To – January 2009 from aziari on Vimeo.

Marshall Kirkpatrick has an excellent, excellent post on Read/Write/Web about how to get up to speed on a specific topic in a matter of minutes.

I’m a huge fan of RSS feeds, but a common problem is sometimes you don’t want to read every single post from an RSS feed – you just want to read that feed’s most popular posts.

The same goes for groups of feeds (think wireless news, social media, Portland art) on a given topic in your RSS reader.

Marshall explains why we need better methods of researching topics discussed in social media:

Let’s say you’re a butcher, a baker or a candlestick maker. You want to get up to speed on the social media activity in your market, as fast as you can. Or perhaps you want to sell things to candlestick makers online, or you’re a journalist writing a story about blogging butchers, or maybe you’ve got some kind of weird baking fetish or academic interest.

Is there any way to ramp up your knowledge of these fields, fast, other than the “Google and wander” method?

Using a combination of tools/techniques including your feed reader, Delicious, editing an OPML file, PostRank, and if you want – Google Custom Search Engines – Marshall proposes how you can have the most relevant information sent to you and available for research purposes in no time. He also shows you how you can find and connect with the bloggers and journalists you’ve found in seconds.

Ways to use this method in marketing & PR

• You have just landed a new client and want to know the pain points of its industry and don’t have the budget to wade through the Web to find out.
• You’re doing an ongoing PR campaign and want to know the most important posts that your target media are writing about.
• You are meeting with a new potential client in an hour and want to know the most relevant discussions happening in its industry.
• Your client is entering a new vertical industry and you want to get a “lay of the land” before you start putting together a marketing proposal.
• You’re writing a pitch to social media for a client and want to know what stories are best received in a given sector so you can tailor your pitch accordingly.

Is the light bulb going off yet?

A Specific Tech PR/Marketing Case Use

Clean tech is a burgeoning industry, and admittedly one I could learn more about. So, let’s say I land a new clean tech client a few months down the road. By using Marshall’s method, I could have a targeted list of the top clean tech blogs/news sites, their top posts in my reader, a specialized search engine of their feeds, and be connected with the bloggers/journalists online  – all in 30 minutes.

How can a client say they’re not getting their money’s worth with this kind of fast action and social connection?

How else can we use this method?

I highly recommend you give this method a stab and see for yourself. It’s really a lot easier than it looks! I used it, for instance, to create a specialized folder of the top San Francisco posts on news and culture. It took me about 15 minutes from start to finish.

Have other ideas of how you could use this method in PR and marketing?

Photo by –Sam–, Words mine via Skitch

I often get asked who my top five favorite bloggers are. It’s the equivalent of being seven and having to pick between Maxi and Barbie. “Mom, don’t make me choose!”

In an effort to cement my answer into eternity, I’ve listed my faves below for you and have included a quick explanation of why these people are on my list.

As you are reading mine, I’d like you to be thinking about your own Top 5 list. Whose voices do you trust the most?

The five voices I follow closest (and WHY!)

Loren Feldman from 1938 Media. I am a HUGE fan of Loren. Some people, namely Shel Israel, are not big fans of his shtick. Loren is more or less the “bad boy” of tech and social media. He’ll say things no one else will dare. He’ll make fun of people and call their bluff. He’ll make really crazy puppet videos mimicking various tech luminaries. I love his work because he offers a fresh voice. There are only so many real “social media experts” out there, and many often have same things to say. Loren has a different way of looking at things and will say what he really thinks – no BS. He’s definitely on my wishlist of people I would like to meet one day.

Loren Feldman (in the form of a Shel Israel puppet) interviews Kevin Rose of Digg

Marshall Kirkpatrick from Read/Write/Web. It’s funny because I live in Portland and I still haven’t met Marshall face-to-face. What I like about Marshall (and the whole RWW blog for that matter) is that he takes a more analytical tone with his tech news. Marshall also understands marketing really well, while (in my opinion) many tech bloggers are not as adept at considering the PR and marketing side of the business in their viewpoints.

Snapshot from my Google Reader

Allen Stern from CenterNetworks. I started reading CenterNetworks after doing a company launch for a client in the consumer Internet space. CenterNetworks focuses specifically on Web tech, which is where my tech interests tend to gravitate. Beyond his blog, Allen amuses me with his tendency to tweet really cheesy lyrics from 80s and early 90s songs, which always makes my day. I commented on one of his recent posts of that he needs to lyric-it-up more, and he said he would try just for for me. Success! It feels good to know he really cares about his readers.

Tim Dyson from A View on PR from Silicon Valley. Tim’s the CEO of Next Fifteen, the parent company of several leading PR agencies in the Valley and beyond. I’ve been reading his blog for a while and I like that he analyzes PR from more of a businessman’s point of view. This is very different from most PR blogs I read, which tend to be more tactical and/or social media focused.

Kelli Matthews from PRos in Training. I know Kelli personally, but even if I didn’t, I still would be reading her blog. Kelli is a PR professor at the University of Oregon and has been one of the most forward-thinking professors in academia in terms of integrating social media into her classroom. She always has great information for beginning PR practitioners (and beyond) and provides a small window for us observe how social media has impacted how PR is taught at the university level.

What you’ll notice about my list is that the people aren’t necessarily the most “popular” voices on the Web. There is no Chris Brogan or Arrington. No Jeremiah Owyang. Instead, they are the voices that have resounded most with me.