Bernie interviewed me today for his terrific show, Find & Convert.

Bernie’s Show       Bernie’s Blog        Find and Convert in iTunes

He asked me a number of questions in advance of the interview and I thought I’d blog the answers here.

Who is Susan Bratton and what does she have her hands in now?

I’m a CEO, Publisher, Blogger, Podcaster, Speaker and Author.

DishyMix is my weekly podcast and companion blog. My coverages ranges from brain science to new gadgets to landing page conversion to the future of the social graph.

I’m the CEO and co-founder of Personal Life Media, an aspirational company and next-generation publisher focused on providing virtual, fully downloadable content experiences.

Our mantra is “frank talk and deep discussion for your personal life.”

We publish 40 podcasts, companion blogs and are launching 15 new information products I call “ebooks with benefits.”

Our first info products to market are, Talk Show Tips, Speak Up with Power and Influence, Masterful Techniques to Overcome Anxiety and Fear, Naturally Slender Quickstart and a 21 Day Lovemaking Program for Couples. We have another 10+ info products in production.

Top shows on Personal Life Media include:
DishyMix, Inside Out Weight Loss, Expanded Lovemaking, Buddhist Geeks, Living Dialogues, 3 Digital Photography Shows, The Diva Cast, The New Man, Just for Women, Philosopher’s Notes, Tantra & Kama Sutra and Sex, Love & Intimacy.

What is my high level view of social media marketing?

I view social media as being in three categories, Listening, Appvertising and Participation. Shiv Singh of Razorfish really helped me gel my concept of these buckets and his DishyMix interview is coming in June.

Listening is getting the most traction with Participation second and Appvertising third.

Listening: New companies like Unbound Technologies, a next generation Neilsen Buzz Metrics, is focused on opportunities around the social graph and social influence marketing. They create a list of the most influential individuals for any given brand and then provide an “affinity map” of the other most-influential people and brands related to that single, key influencer. This is fantastic for outreach, prioritization of influencers and joint promotions to important clustered audiences.

Taking behaviorial targeting to a new high with the inclusion of social graphing is Media6Degrees. They offer ad targeted based on social graphing. I also need an update on Lookery who is aggregating social media data across social networks to use for ad targeting. My interview with Scott Rafer of Lookery is here.

Appvertising is being well handled by ClearSpring, Gigya and RockYou! as well as SocialMedia.com and ContextOptional. Brands who create useful aps or sponsor useful aps for their target consumers are brilliant players at a high-level of sophistication in the social influence marketing sphere.

Participation is certainly evident in Facebook Pages. Here’s my DishyMix Fan Club where I give away all kinds of goodies to my listeners.  Also popular and smart are consumer generated content experiences like HP on YouTube described here in my interview with Daina Middleton and the darling of the moment, corporate Twitter accounts like this one.
What is the biggest difficulty in Social Media Marketing?

I believe in larger organizations, it is around internal ownership. Should social marketing be part of marketing, corp comm, where? In smaller organizations, I see the problem being one of overwhelming choice. Where do I start as a small business with limited resources?

Also, tracking and ROI still being figured out. Here is a great presentation on social media ROI.
http://www.slideshare.net/yongfook/social-media-roi

Lee Odden (the wonderful soul who connected Bernie and I in the first place through his superlative Top Rank Online Marketing Blog  and I talk about integration of web analytics and social media analytics in this interview I did with Lee at SXSW for the #Community Powered project. Emphasis on real time data. The data that you can collect through something like a social media monitoring tool, like Buzz Logic, Collective Intellect, Radian6, married with web analytics, like Google Analytics, Omniture, Web Trends.

Lee Odden and Susan Bratton on Web and Social Media Analytics

Podcasting? How did you get into it? What is the current state of podcasting and consulting your crystal ball on podcasting’s future.

Podcasting is still a nascent market.

The beauty of it is that anyone can create an audience of raving fans. (and in my ebook with benefits, called Talk Show Tips, I teach you how to empower your raving fans with the tools they need to help you grow your audience.)

If you are articulate and like to talk more than you like to write, audio may be better for you than blogging. And with transcripts, you can have the best of both worlds.

For video, the bar is very high on production quality. Make sure you are adequately resourced before pursuing.

Commercial podcasting is a very smart solution for brands who have deep knowledge to share with their customers and prospects.

The ADM (Association for Downloadable Media) is working on ad models, audience measurement and consumer attitudes toward sponsorships of podcasts.

It’s a greenfield opportunity for sponsors. Integrated social media programs are key. You must leverage the hosts’ social media influence.

There are two excellent video clips on Volomedia’s blog about Podcasting Metrics and Podcast Advertising and Sponsorship that Jeff Karnes and I just presented at the eMetrics Summit.

My presentation is at Slideshare.com about some of my best programs from TrustedID, Holosync’s MeditateFree.com, Better Sex Institute, Lensbaby, Accuquote and Audible.

http://www.volomedia.com/blog/2009/05/shows-on-the-go-with-jeff-karn.php

http://www.slideshare.net/SusanBratton/podcasting-metrics-and-sponsorship-ideas

Finally, Talk Show Tips: 72 Secret ‘Master Host’ Techniques will teach anyone how to land big name guests, prepare for their show, ask killer questions with my easy question-generator mini-course, create and manage a facile show flow, conduct professional in-interview techniques and learn a dozen ideas for using social media to radiate your show and help your fans promote your show for you.

What is your DishyMix podcast and blog business model?

I’m very fortunate to have sponsors who underwrite my show to reach my valuable, sophisticated audience of marketers, agency pros and digital media mavens. DishyMix is sponsored by Isobar US Carat, the eMetrics Marketing Optimization Summits, adtech conferences, Trusted ID, Upstream Habitat and Audible.

Who are some of the most memorable guests on DishyMix?

I’ve created a blog post to wrap up my Top 10 Favorite DishyMix Guests.

DishyMix: Success Secrets from Famous Media and Internet Business Executives

And Coming Soon! Alvin Toffler, author of Future Shock on his newest tome, Revolutionary Wealth and Keith Ferrazzi, author of Never Eat Alone on his newest angle, Who’s Got Your Back?

Who are some of the most memorable guests on DishyMix?

Without a doubt, this list of amazing human beings are my all time favorite guests. The interviews are delightful, inspiring, educational and entertaining:

Sir Ken Robinson on The Element, Talent Assessment and Feeling Lucky

Dacher Keltner, Born to Be Good, Your Jen Ratio and Cro-Magnon CEO’s

Lynda Resnick on Predicting Winning Products, Outliers and Rubies and Cuties

David Szetela and the PPC 10 Cylinder Engine

Nolan Bushnell, 20 Start Ups Later, on Chemical Engines, Existentialism and “My Cave.”

WOZ Steve Wozniak, Apple Computer on Inventing as Art, Philanthropy and the Spirit of Creativity Part 1 of 2

Marcus Buckingham on The Truth About You, Career Intervention on Oprah and the Strength’s Revolution

John Zogby, Preeminent Pollster on The American Dream, Retail Politics and the Value Chasm

Alex Bogusky of Crispin, Porter + Bogusky on Culture Jamming, Hermie the Pygmy Elephant and Telling the Subservient Chicken to Go “Pluck” Himself

John Battelle on The Conversation Economy, Hairy World Issues and High School Musicals Part 1 of 2.

Learning Practical Steps to Decouple Fear From Our Moment-by-Moment Choice-Driven Evolution with Guy Finley http://TwitPWR.com/eEt/

Inside Out Weight Loss on “Gain Money, Lose Weight.” http://TwitPWR.com/fJ1/

The Alchemy of Passion: Building Polarity with Saida Désilets and Sol Sebastian, Renowned Tantric Teachers http://TwitPWR.com/fJ2/

Philosopher’s Notes: “Could gives us a choice, and we are never wrong.” ~ Louise L. Hay from You Can Heal Your Life http://TwitPWR.com/fJ3/

The New Man: Sera Beak – Bust Out of the Cultural BS and Follow Your Own Path http://TwitPWR.com/fJ4/

Buddhist Geeks: Alan Chapman on Advanced Magick for Beginners. http://TwitPWR.com/fJ5/

Just for Women: Newt Bailey: How To Tell Him What You Need. http://TwitPWR.com/fJ6/

Kelly Mooney, Resource Interactive on The OPEN Brand Framework, Your Social Profile Manager, Blizzard Rafting http://TwitPWR.com/fJ7/

Words to Mouth on the Rooftops of Tehran with Mahbod Seraji http://TwitPWR.com/fJ8/

Close Your Ears and Dream On – Wallace D. Wattles “The Science of Being Great.” http://TwitPWR.com/fJ9/

The DivaCast – Putting Together a Best of Reel http://TwitPWR.com/fJa/

Smile with Lumineers, Veneers, Invasalign And More: Dr. Dan Spills All He Knows on Beauty Now http://TwitPWR.com/fJb/

Say No to Paraben and Yes to Carrots in Natural Beauty Care Products on GreenTalk Radio http://TwitPWR.com/fJc/

Are you willing to feel good and have your life go well ALL THE TIME? Gay Hendricks on Philosopher’s Notes http://TwitPWR.com/fJd/

Stanislav Grof On the Road of “2012 NOW – Empowering the Transformation” http://TwitPWR.com/fJe/ on Living Dialogues

Finding Your Niche in Digital Photography with Gene Higa on Camera Dojo http://TwitPWR.com/fJf/

Tuscany Photography Workshop with Gene Higa. I want to go! http://TwitPWR.com/fJf/

Secrets of a Temple Priestess for Women with Triambika http://TwitPWR.com/eEt/

The Weight Loss/Sleep Connection http://TwitPWR.com/fJg/

Increasing Water Efficiency with the EPA’s WaterSense Program on GreenTalk Radio http://TwitPWR.com/fJh/

Business Success Tips with Mike Williams and the GuruTube http://TwitPWR.com/fJi/

How do you transform everything that happens in a relationship into more intimacy? http://TwitPWR.com/fJk/

Driving Under the Stars (feat. Stephane Pompougnac, Lovespirals, and more…) http://TwitPWR.com/fJm/ Music for Midnight

Immigration and Naturalization with genealogy lecturer and blogger Stephen Danko. http://TwitPWR.com/fJn/

You know deep inside you that you will never be fully satisfied until you have anchored yourself in your Zone of Genius. http://TwitPWR.com/fJp/

A Handshake Deal with the Universe on Philosopher’s Notes http://TwitPWR.com/fJp/

Gay Hendricks from The Big Leap http://TwitPWR.com/fJp/

Reading the Thoughts of God on Philosopher’s Notes with Wallace D. Wattles http://TwitPWR.com/fJr/

Am I Normal? Embracing Sacred Sensual Minorities and Majorities with Loraine Hutchins, PhD. http://TwitPWR.com/fJs

My experience driving the Lincoln MKS.

Here is a delightful email from a DishyMix fan. (Thank you, Michael and Pam!)

Hi Susan,

First, Thank You and everyone at Personal Life Media for all the thought provoking, insightful and compelling content you provide. From DishyMix to Philosopher’s Note’s, my wife and I look forward to every new episode and we keep our favorites in our iTunes Libraries.

We are so happy you brought back Sir Ken Robinson on DishyMix. Your first conversation was fantastic and we look forward to resuming the podcast after finishing this email. We would LOVE to opportunity to be considered for an autographed copy of The Element. It will be put to great use.

Please keep up the outstanding work your organization provides. You make our commutes, work outs and life so much more fulfilling,

Sincerely,
Michael Carr and Pam Hoffman

Editors Note: Michael and Pam were advised to post their requst on the DishyMix Fan Club page on Facebook. If you would like a personally autographed copy of The Element, you can post your desire there too.

Ford offered to let me demo one of their new Lincoln MKS sedans this week. Though I Twittered the opportunity for any local (to Los Altos, CA) blogger buddies to go for a joy ride with me, I got no takers. Sigh. I did a few drops and picks of my kid at school and that was about the extent of my fleeting loaner driving. Nonetheless I made the most of it and really enjoyed the ride and the gadgetry.

The Lincoln MKS is a beautifully apportioned car and very easy to drive – effortless really.

Roomy, pretty, well-appointed as a Lincoln should be, my favorite attribute was the Ford SYNC voice recognition system. I liked the ability to very, very easily sync my iPhone with the voice management system and to toggle back and forth from my music library to NPR on the radio. Bluetooth pairing was effortless and I could easily become addicted to the handsfree voice-activated controls.

I have one of those Griffin iTrip devices through which I listen to my iPod via my car stereo. It’s ok, but now I really wish I had the audio jack like the Lincoln MKS.

The Navigation system was big, bright and the maps were well designed. The climate control was a mixed bag for me. I could quite get the directional airflow the way I liked it from the vents but it was more than compensated for by the heated/air conditioned white leather seats. My butt was delightfully cooled on hot afternoons picking Tay up from school.

In preparation for my blogger junket to London and Cambridge with the Traveling Geeks in July, we met with Nokia this week. They are outfitting us with N79 phones and all the new Ovi Maps 3.0 technologies.

Maria and Jorg, the Berlin-based team working on both Ovi Maps for the phone and OviMaps online portal maps.ovi.com showed us the next generation of mapping.
If you’ve been impressed with Google Maps, Ovi will blow you away.

Ovi Maps has 3D, satellite and terrain views as well as weather info and more. You can go to the Ovi Maps portal site and map out your routes and then sync that to your phone. The ability to use web-based software first and then sync to your phone makes this mapping experience extra powerful.

You can find an place or search for restaurants or any business in a particular area. You can get driving and walking maps. The Tom Tom and other nav systems are definitely threatened by Ovi Map’s real-time directions via the speaker in your phone. Your Nokia phone becomes a Tom Tom, with real time, turn by turn directions for your car or for walking. There is traffic information and a speed-limit voice warning system, in case you don’t have a wife. The GPS positioning is FAST. The phone records your real time walking path to make sure you stay on the route.

You can save all your personalized searches too. The only thing you need to know to use Ovi maps that’s different than Google is that you have to put in your macro location first, then go granular in your searches. You can’t type Malmaison Hotel, London. First you have to choose London, then drill down to Malmaison Hotel. That being said, Ovi has mapped the globe – 231 cities and even better, an average of 30 landmarks per city.

The 3D Landmarks Ovi has created are gorgeous – like this image of the Tower of London and the Tower Bridge. The mapping graphics are a next generation of design. Pop into a new city and pick a walking route near the 3D landmarks and you’ll see the best of that town. Nokia has also done a content deal with Lonely Planet and Michelin and is building out more content.

I’m looking forward to trying this phone and all the mapping capabilities out for my trip to Amsterdam in June and the #Traveling Geeks UK trip in July.

I’ll report back my real usage experience instead of my demo notes soon.

Ford sent me a Flip Video Mino and delivered their new Lincoln MKS to me this week for a review.

I barely got the Mino out of the box and Taylor was already making videos. First, I love the car. And I’ve been a Lexus lover for 17 years now. But more on that later.

Here’s a video of Taylor in our first ride together.

One of my all time most popular DishyMix guests is Sir Ken Robinson. He has a new book out called, “The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything.” Sir Ken is an international leader in human potential and creativity and education.

Here’s an excerpt from my interview with Sir Ken about finding your passion and being in “the element.”

Susan Bratton: Sir Ken, when I read your book I really felt like what you did was kick open the door to a new realm of talent assessment tools. I, poof, popped into a whole new place where there was so much more for me to understand about myself and the people that I love and work with, about their talents and their capabilities. You referenced a lot of people’s work and stitched it together, with your own special spin and look at humans and their unique ways of being. Please describe The Element for us. Give us that level set.

Sir Ken Robinson: Okay, well The Element, the title comes from an expression that a lot of people use, and I hear myself saying, you know, which is that people do their best when they do the thing they love, when they’re in their element. And I thought, “Well what is that exactly”, because it’s clear to me in my experience that an awful lot of people do things for a living that they don’t really like doing, they don’t much enjoy it, they just get on with it because they have found their way into it and, you know, they live their lives in a kind of low grade sense of tolerance, is what they do.

And yet I also meet lots of people that actually love what they do and couldn’t really imagine doing anything else. You know, they’re in their element, so to speak. Well it’s two things it seems to me. One of them is to be in your element you have to be doing something that you have a natural attitude for, a natural feel. And the truth is, we all have very, very different attitudes. You know, we take the things in very different ways. But it’s not enough to be doing something you’re good at, because I know lots of people who do things they’re good at that they don’t really much like doing. To be in your element you have to love it too. And if you are doing something you’re good at and something that you also love to do, that seems to me to be the perfect place and that’s what being in your element is.

Susan Bratton: So it’s the intersection of your talent and your passion… And that was the point in the book. It doesn’t matter what your talents are if you don’t love them. If you’re really good at numbers and they bore you to death, don’t do it. If you love plants and growing things and that’s your passion and it’s a part of your talent, that’s where you should be.

Sir Ken Robinson: That’s right. And it applies definitely to people in all sorts of different walks of life, you know. For some people it’s math, for some people it’s working with people, it’s teaching, it’s doing what you’re doing now, you know, or it’s, it could be cooking or raising families, or anything at all. I mean our attitudes are very different, and that’s in a way a major point in the book. You know, the book is really about diversity and celebrating difference.

Susan Bratton: You wrote, “The best hope for the future is to develop a new paradigm of human capacity to meet a new era of human existence.” I think that goes to what you’re saying, that every one of us has a unique talent. You know, you’ve been very critical of our education system being a part of the industrial revolution mechanism. That we are thinking about people’s talents and pigeon holing them as well, and you want to get out of that and find a lot of new ways. What are some of the things that we can do as people who manage other people for example, to create this new era of human existence?

Sir Ken Robinson: The shift I’m talking about, as you say, is from an old model, not just of education but of the mind to, a richer model. You know, the current systems education are intended to develop our ability to work, among other things. But the way in which it’s done is rooted so much in the 19th century models of industrial manufacture, that most people now I think never truly discover their own talents through the process of being educated. I have lots of people in the work, I’ve interviewed all kinds of people in the arts and sciences, in business, in not for profits, and many of them didn’t do well at school at all, they. They went on to do brilliantly well afterwards, once they discovered their real talents.

I don’t mean to say that in order to succeed you have to have failed at school first; I mean that would be pushing this a bit far. But it is true that education is designed to identify certain sorts of talents and not all talents. That’s, by the way, education, traditional education at its best. The problem now I think is that our school systems have become so oppressed and stifled by standards of systemized testing that their not even succeeding in their traditional market, so to speak. So a lot of people come through the system never really know what they’re good at…

And I think for companies and organizations, and for parents and families, what I’m trying to argue for is we have to go back and think very differently about the nature of human intelligence and the nature of human ability. We’re grown up with a whole set of ideas that we take for granted about our natural abilities, and the result of it is I think we have a very impoverished view of our own potential, and I think companies have a very impoverished view very often of the real talents that align there in the people they employ.

To listen to the whole interview, click on the buttons below.

Sir Ken Robinson on The Element, Talent Assessment and Feeling Lucky

Additional Discussion Points from the Interview:

• What is your human potential, the intersection of aptitude and passion and finding your calling?
• Does your job make you ecstatically happy or utterly miserable?
• Your best attributes? Linguistic, musical, mathematical, spatial, kinesthetic, interpersonal or intrapersonal?
• Do you have more analytic intelligence, creative or practical intelligence?
• “The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything.”
• Two free autographed copies for http://dishymixfan.com DishyMix fans!
• The Element from @SirKenRobinson. 2 free autographed copies! Post your desire at http://dishymixfan.com DishyMix
• “The best hope for the future is to develop a new paradigm of human capacity to meet a new era of human existence.”
• Our school systems have become so oppressed and stifled by standards of systematized testing they’re not succeeding.
• “Companies have a very impoverished view of the real talents that align in the people they employ.”
• Howard Gardener says there are 9 main forms of intelligence. What are yours?
• @SirKenRobinson on Robert Cooper, The Other 90 Percent, about the heart brain and the gut brain.
• @SirKenRobinson on how experiences go first to the neurological networks of the intestinal track and heart.
• The enteric nervous system: 2nd brain inside the intestines, independent of, but interconnected with the brain.
• Why we often experience our first reaction to events as a gut reaction, which shapes everything we do.”
• Robert Sternberg from Tufts, kind of an anti-IQ guy on analytic, creative and practical intelligence.
• Herman Brain Dominance: A, B, C & D Quadrants: analytic, implementation, social and future thinking.
• Herman Brain Dominance Instrument better than Myers Briggs.
• The Luck Factor by psychologist Gordon Wiseman.
• Sir Ken Robinson on The Element, Talent Assessment and Feeling Lucky