Paying Interns: Marc Hausman Says No Way

Strategic Communications Group (Strategic) uses social media to engage, educate, and entertain audiences for companies like BearingPoint, British Telecom, GovDelivery, Microsoft, Monster, and Sun Mircosystems. But it doesn't pay interns.

Marc Hausman, president and CEO of Strategic Communications Group, is very clear about it in several places. Interns don't add enough value. Interns are lucky to work there for free. And interns ought to be grateful to get portfolio building assignments.

Fair enough. It's his business and if he cannot afford to pay a nominal rate of $8 or $10 or $12 per hour, I can only hope his business picks up. Sure, he is right that the Labor Department need not intervene. But to propose that unpaid internships ought to be standard practice, Hausman is as wrong as his justifications, as are many who commented in support of it.

Why Copywrite, Ink. Has Always Paid Interns.

• Interns Add Value. Sure, not all interns are created equal. Some prove to be a poor match or, in one case I recall, a legal liability. However, students in general add value to professional firms because most come into an internship with high expectations, infectious enthusiasm, and devoid of bad habits learned at other firms. They can also reveal strengths and weaknesses within the organization, especially among future management.

• Interns Earn Opportunities. If the internship program is designed correctly, then they aren't so lucky. They have to earn it, sometimes from a field of other qualified candidates. In other cases, they have to give up paid jobs with no promise of future employment. Sure, the firm might hire them. However, the firm's ability to hire them is not based purely based on their ability. It's based on the firm's fiscal position, which they have no control over. The trust-based risk is mutual.

• Firms Get Paid For Intern Work. If there isn't an opportunity to build at least some samples, paid or unpaid, it's not worth the time for the intern. However, even with oversight, there might be a question of ethics to charge clients for unpaid intern work (especially government clients) for what amounts to a higher profit margin. Besides, in today's world, portfolio building has never been easier. Students can create videos, blogs, and Web sites that demonstrate specific talents.

• Firms Invest In Training Anyway. There are always costs associated with candidate selection and training. If the firm accepts that risk when hiring any candidate, then how could it justify treating a student any differently? At minimum, an unpaid internship is like a free test drive that the same firms would never offer a client for a period of three months with set hours.

Are there times when unpaid internships are acceptable? Sure. Unpaid interns in the nonprofit sector make sense because it is called volunteer work. I encourage students to learn through community service on their own or under advisement.

One of the most beneficial and rewarding non-internship programs I developed five years ago for students taking the Writing For Public Relations class at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, was to volunteer time to develop a media kit for the nonprofit organization of their choice and I would volunteer my time to provide step-by-step oversight. It was a win-win-win, given my near addiction to serving the community.

Only two students ever accepted the challenge. Both landed positions at major firms. As for our paid internships, all of the students with any talent whatsoever landed positions specific to their career goals, including one with a major New York publisher and one a position with a major Los Angeles public relations firm (there are many more, but those came to mind). We design our program that way. Two interns, after they left our firm, returned years later, not as employees, but as clients.

Certainly, internships require an investment by all parties, but it's a mistake to think that only the intern stands to receive a return on investment or that compensation ends with the privilege of allowing someone to stand over your shoulder. The return is directly proportionate to what you make it.

Next week, I'll offer up some insight into developing a paid internship program that works. In the meantime, please consider some other thoughts (and apparently few thoughts) on the value of paid internships. As a footnote, I might mention that communication (advertising, public relations, communication, social media) has become the hotbed of unpaid interns.

• PR Interns Part III: You Get What You Pay For
• All Work And No Pay: One In Three Interns Unpaid & Exploited
• Was Your Internship Illegal?

Interviewing Techniques: Nodders, Translators, Talkers, Conversationalists

After ten years of teaching, you can't help but to notice a few things in the classroom. One of them, unless you're a lecturer as opposed to an adaptive instructor, is that every class is different. It only makes sense because the students are different.

This year, my class seemed especially quiet compared to the year prior. At first, I thought it might be because of the smaller class size, but I was convinced it was something else by the third lesson. Seriously. They were so quiet, I almost thought adding keynote presentations during a portion of the class was a mistake.

I might have even skipped keynotes all together had three guest speakers drawn the same quiet, nodding heads. There was that, and I read an article in Communication World by Steve Crescenzo, owner of Crescenzo Communications.

He said there were two types of communicators: nodders and translators. Translators, Crescenzo wrote, know that if they walk out of the interview without understanding the topic, there is no way they can write an article that anyone else will understand. Nodders, on the other hand, hold back on asking questions because they don't want to look stupid.

The article struck home at first. My class was stacked with nodders. But was it really that simple? Looking back on past interviews and classes, I knew it couldn't be that easy. Maybe there are four types.

Nodders, Talkers, Translators, Conversationalists.

• Nodders. While Crescenzo attributes the nodder to being afraid to look stupid or ask dumb questions, I don't believe all nodders are created equal. Sure, some try to fake their way through without looking ignorant, but some are like sponges, analysts who sit back and consider every word spoken with the intent to research anything they don't understand afterward. There is nothing wrong with that, but sometimes they leave the speaker or interviewee guessing. Do you get that?

• Talkers. This is one of two styles we might add onto Crescenzo's thinking. Talkers command the floor. They don't ask questions as much as they make statements. Inexplicably, they don't always allow the speaker or interviewee to complete a thought before they lead them with a question that opens up dialogue for their stories and statements. They already know the answers so questions aren't really part of the equation. They already know what you need to do.

• Translators. As Crescenzo notes, translators know they not only have to understand a topic, but convince the speaker or interviewee to communicate in ways that the average person might understand it. They have many tricks and tactics in order to accomplish this task. Sometimes, they will ask the same question several ways. Other times, they will ask for examples. And yet other times, they will direct the speaker or interviewee to assume the readers/listeners don't know anything.

• Conversationalists. As the second add on, these folks are fascinating people who frequently drift away from the topic or spend ample time asking questions about the speaker and interviewee. Sometimes they are even forced to scramble during the last ten minutes of a meeting to cover questions they know they need to ask and tend to be surprised when the interviewee announces they have to leave for the next meeting. While the dialogue is always engaging, the social chatter sometimes overshadows the topic.

Crescenzo suggests that the translator has the advantage. While I would normally tend to agree because this style seems to complement the other styles, it seems to me the best interviewers need a more adaptive approach.

Nodders tend to win over talkers and translators help conversationalists stay on track. Conversely, talkers can draw out nodders and conversationalists welcome varied duplicate questions posed by translators. The best interviewers quickly assess and adapt their style to what seems like the best match. Sometimes, saying nothing works. And other times, interviewers have to fill the silence or else the entire session will go bust.

More importantly, never assume any style conveys anything about the other person. The nodder might be afraid to look stupid. Or, they could be analyzing your every word because you haven't stopped talking. Case in point: the interview that unraveled Richard Nixon consisted of a single question. When no other questions were asked, the talker filled the silence.

Baffling Gawker: Classic Marketing Company

Gawker doesn't get it, and you might not either. Classic Marketing Company spent an estimated $107,075 to run a full-page "press release" in The New York Times.

It's not a great press release. It's only the typical boiler plate kind that says a whole lot of nothing, right down to the quote.

“SWS was selected because it has the marketing and sales expertise needed to position our brands for their continued growth," says Joe Ballin, president and CEO of Classic Marketing Company, before the release devolves into an inauthentic marketing pitch. "Fragoli is a unique, first of its kind beverage alcohol product that allows women to spoil themselves with something truly extravagant!"

There is so much wrong with the release that I'd need another post to correct it. Today, we'll just stick to the big picture.

How To Make Bad Marketing Worse With Logic.

Simple logic is the likely culprit in buying what Gawker calls the world's most expensive press release. And while we're very interested to learn if Joe Ballin, president and CEO of Classic Marketing Company, ever responds to their inquiry, it's easy enough to speculate.

At some point, press releases issued by Classic Marketing Company probably outperformed ads. So, for someone, it was easy to conclude that the release would be more effective than the ad in The New York Times. And there you have it.

Except...

Many marketing decisions fail because they are based on erroneous conclusions. And, while this is speculative, we've seen some marketers follow the same decision making path for decades. Here's our educated guess.

First, nobody asked whether the ad is effective. In this case, the answer is no. Sure, some beverage companies believe they can follow the fashion brand ad path with sexed up big product shots, but liqueurs need some help. People need to know what to do with them. This is why the Mud Slide is as well known as Kahlua coffee liqueur.

Second, the company completely misses its target audience. It places ads in wrong publications. And, the image of a woman biting the neck of the bottle would probably appeal more to men than women. Unfortunately, this product probably appeals to only a very small segment of men. It's also a stretch to think men would buy a liqueur to spoil their women.

Third, the press success was likely based on random pick ups and search engine ranking. Some pubs ran the full release for filler, and several probably picked up the only graph or two that constituted news. In the spirits distribution business, Southern Wine & Spirits has a strong brand. Classic Marketing Company, not so much. The pick up would be news to someone.

At the end of the day, the poorly thought out advertisement was outpaced by the poorly written release based on measuring reach over outcomes. And thus, someone allowed the release to take center stage in The New York Times. And, what do you know, it is getting exposure (for all the wrong reasons).

There is only one saving grace for the marketing ploy that misses on every level. It allows Southern Wine & Spirits to tell bar owners that Classic Marketing Company has invested in a campaign that includes The New York Times. So, they ought to buy a bottle or two for some rainy day when a patron might ask for it by name. After all, nobody likes a bar that can't deliver a drink.

Shifting To Digital: Media Moves

According to a study conducted by PR Newswire, journalists are facing heavier workloads. However, if there is any good news for print, it's that the heavy workload provides increased job security as the fear of further job erosion has become moderate.

Last week, as part of my final class for Writing For Public Relations, I hosted Bruce Spotleson, group publisher for Greenspun Media Group, which publishes some 30 different online and print publications. Many of them are niche media publications, delivered free to targeted demographics within specific communities.

"Most of the dailies had made cuts in critical positions such as investigative reporters and political reporters," explained Spotleson. "They tend to be the most expensive positions for newspapers, but they are also among the most important."

While Spotleson has hope for the future and believes that publishers will survive (based in part on slight upticks across several economic indicators), he seems less certain about where the evolution will lead. As hard news reporting gives way to short breaking news, novelty, validation media, and highly trafficked informational light content similar to broadcast news, it is anybody's guess where the objective journalism will end up.

"Heavier workloads, shorter deadlines, and increased competition are causing journalists to seek out new sources of information to help them get their jobs done, including social networks," said Erica Iacono, executive editor of PRWeek. "Although these new tools offer a different way for journalists to interact with PR professionals and media consumers, there must still be a focus on the basic tenets of good journalism."

Unfortunately, good journalism doesn't always translate into readership, a requirement which has been thrust upon some journalists as publishers count page views. Counting hits tends to undermine quality news in favor of trolling for traffic.

Expect more of it. One of the biggest changes in the last year, just as "2010 PRWeek/PR Newswire Media Survey" reveals, is the merging of traditional journalism with online communications. Spotleson said Greespun Media and the Las Vegas Sun had done much the same last year. Reporters and online journalists are attempting to balance two mediums despite very different criteria and formats. Instead of long format in-depth analysis, journalists have to be just as comfortable with three-graph news blurbs.

Likewise, while Spotleson didn't provide details, he made it clear that news publishers are looking to the iPad as the future of print. He's not alone. The survey reinforces this fact, with a continued shift from print to online reporting. Fifty-seven percent of magazine and newspaper journalists indicated that this trend will continue in earnest. The survey also revealed that as many as 91 percent of bloggers and 68 percent of online reporters "always" or "sometimes" use blogs for research, only 35 percent of newspaper and 38 percent of print magazine journalists said they do.

The transition will likely cause some other changes not considered by PR Newswire. Specifically, wire services with the exception of ginning up SEO, will likely become less relevant than search and social networks. And publishers will have to balance being popular and providing quality news in order to remain competitive. Another possibility, according to Spotleson, is that some print could become its own niche. People tend to browse printed magazines when they are delivered to their door or mailbox for free, he said.

Recapping Content: Fresh Content

Sometimes something happens as a byproduct of social media. Someone stumbles upon something that works in terms of driving traffic and then they stick with it, pumping up more traffic generating posts that lack value to gain traction over real thinking.

Although the Fresh Content Project is an experiment that removes popularity from the equation to find which communicators are providing the best content, it also offers a glimpse at some of the best posts being shared by people who believe in the content they write. This lineup is no exception. See for yourself.

Best Fresh Content In Review, Week of March 22

• Productive Crowdsourcing Requires Community Management.
Geoff Livingston pinpoints some of the challenges with crowdsourcing despite its growing popularity on the social web. Crowds aren't always trustworthy and sometimes they aren't even your customers. He concludes that crowdsourcing requires strong community management for companies to realize positive results. He's right. Community guidance is mission critical.

• Six Questions To Ask Before Launching A Facebook Fan Page.
Shel Holtz brings some much needed strategic thinking to the process of creating Facebook fan pages. Before dashing off to start one without a plan, he rightly suggests considering who the audience might be, who the fan page might attract, who will manage the medium, who will provide content, and what is the contingency plan. There are more questions to ask, but these six serve up an excellent starter set.

• Japanese Bureaucrats Crush Digital Economy Innovators.
David Meerman Scott delivers a powerful piece on how government and industry are actively blocking innovators in Japan from creating similar success in the fast-growing, new digital economy. It's an excellent story that might even mirror what is happening in the United States as government tends to serve slow-moving entrenched giants as opposed to small business upstarts even though small businesses employ as much as 80 percent of the workforce in the private sector (depending on the state). It's a must read for many reasons.

• How Marketers Can Prepare For The Next Wave of Mobile Adoption.
Most people know by now (and if they didn't, the iPad lines might have woken them up) the future is mobile. So we were thrilled to see that Jennifer Riggle created a composite of several key points that influence the future of communication. One of the most compelling will be the creation of mobile commerce. Clearly, the easier it is for consumers to buy products, the better.

• The Cult of Mediocrity.
Andrew Weaver provides a wake-up call for small businesses and anyone in business. He ticks off a list of 13 elements that are indicative of mediocrity in the workplace. The result is always the same or, as Weaver puts it, a practice in depressing excellence. When you think about it, the same can be said about the Web. In an effort to produce traffic, communicators sometimes depress excellent content in favor of traffic attractors. Except, of course, any posts that find their way here.

Ranking Content Providers: Fresh Content Project, First Quarter

Last year, we launched an online experiment called the Fresh Content Project, which tracked approximately 100 blogs (currently at about 230) to determine how much popularity played a role in what communicators read online. We speculated it played a significant role, and sometimes at a detriment.

So, to put popularity to the test, we removed it from the equation and tracked approximately 100 blogs (currently at about 250) frequently referenced by a capped Twitter list of 300 communication-related professionals (currently at 248).

From those blogs, we narrowed the "Fresh Content" to choosing a single standout post every weekday (with weekend posts spilling into Monday). There is no algorithm. We picked one post per day. You can find out why we picked them here.

So what happened? Thirty-six communication-related professionals were picked at least once, with a handful picked more than once. Popularity, not surprisingly, is no measure for quality content. In fact, we even had to remove three popular blogs; two for plagiarizing the content of lesser known bloggers and one for providing consistently bad advice.

We're NOT including the names of those blogs or the balance of the blogs included in this experiment because it is designed to lift people up and not tear them down. So please don't ask if "so and so" was included in the experiment. They probably were. Besides, there are some people who are already on next quarter's list like Chris Koch, who was picked just yesterday.

Speaking of which, I might mention that we also made note of posts that, on any other day, might have been the pick. Mostly, we added that measure so we would not have to list ties in alphabetical order. Suffice to say that there are some worthwhile authors who haven't been picked yet.

So, here are 36 communication-related professionals who provided Fresh Content Picks in the first quarter of 2010. While some are suited for specific tastes, there is no mistaking that the top of this list (with more than one pick) ought to be in your reader.

The folks below represent some of the freshest, most original content related to communication today. And, we look forward to reading more of their fresh content in the second quarter along with some new faces. The comments are yours.

36 Fresh Content Communicators By Quality Of Content

1. Valeria Maltoni is a passionate brand strategist and author of the Conversation Agent. Her work frequently appears in other places and spaces, but you'll find a consistent stream of strategic communication content on her blog. Hands down, she is the hardest working communicator online with more fresh content picks than anyone. She pens posts you won't want to miss almost daily.

2. Geoff Livingston may have undergone some positive transitions this past year, but he still measures up as someone who not only practices what he preaches but does so with unabashed authenticity. Whether you follow his occasional work on The Buzz Bin or his personal blog, you'll find most posts play along. But then, without any warning, he takes a stand that strikes at the heart of an issue with such clarity, it reminds you that he doesn't embrace the Echo Chamber.

3. Ike Pigott is a smart guy who pens smart content that is generally too far off the beaten path on Occam's RazR for him to become popular. What you'll find, however, are ample amounts of truth that are only occasionally distracted by personal interests. The benefit is that, free from the trappings of being popular, he can call it like he sees it. He's also one of the better writers online. You'll love the prose.

4. Maria Reyes McDavis A.K.A. WebSuccessDiva, is "almost" a surprise find. Her online presence might have been well-known among people looking for SEO, but that isn't what makes Web Success Diva stand out. It's her smart and business savvy approach to strategies and tactics, the kind of skill sets that not enough communicators are working to develop. Reading her blog has become a real benefit since starting this experiment.

5. Lee Odden doesn't need much of an introduction to anyone who follows anything about SEO. He has been penning great content as CEO of Top Rank Online Marketing for what feels like forever. He's a veteran online marketer, but his expert understanding of SEO is what most people remember. There is a reason for that. He wasn't given any gift of popularity. He earns it.

6. Bill Sledzik, public relations professor at Kent State, doesn't provide the volume of content needed to keep up with the more popular people with opinions on public relations and sometimes social media. But what he does do at ToughSledding is provide value. What you'll find are posts that frequently bridge proven practices with tactics that some experts mistake as new ideas.

7. Mitch Joel is an author and digital marketer bent on good design. As he is a new media enthusiast, you're likely to find some posts on Six Degrees of Separation attempting to peer three steps into the possible future. While he sometimes misses, you'll find he hits more than his fair share by practicing a mantra that can best be described as rethinking everything.

8. Jay Ehret A.K.A. "The Marketing Guy" is chief officer of "awesomeness" at The Marketing Spot. Specializing in small business marketing consultation, Ehret has been around for some time. What you'll find is a retooling of social media to meet the needs of small business marketing as learned by big businesses once upon a time. Not everyone will appreciate his roll-up-the-sleeves approach, but you'll find more than a few gems on his blog.

9. Bob Conrad is one of the better but somehow underrated thinkers in the field. You'll find his work on The Good, The Bad, The Spin tends to challenge the status quo with new ideas, but not at the expense of traditional thought that continues to prove itself true. If he wrote more posts, he'd likely be higher on any list.

10. Callan Green is a junior account executive on the BG Creative team who lends her voice to the company's Don't Drink The Kool-Aid Blog. She's also one to watch. Green is already starting to stand out because she has the right background and obviously has the right guidance as a junior account executive. It's easy to say so because when she recaps lessons learned or shares observations, they are always spot on without too much slippage we see from longstanding social media experts.

11. Joel Postman is an internal communications executive for Learning@Cisco. His blog, Socialized, is rough to read in the format in which it is presented. But if you can get past the gray on gray tight columns (or subscribe in a reader), the content speaks for itself. Of late, Postman is making a great case as a well-meant contrarian who turns some readily accepted social media ideas on their heads. You have to love that.

12. Beth Harte wears many hats, which has contributed to a much slower posting pace at The Harte of Marketing. That isn't a bad thing. Since she scaled back on her postings, each post has become more important and much more grounded with her roots as a marketing professional. Apparently, the initial Kool-Aid buzz has worn off and she has become a welcome advocate for integrated communication.

13. Andrew Weaver writes about life, business, and everything in between on Leave It To Weaver. Sometimes it touches on communication and marketing issues, but not enough to operate inside the communication bubble. As a result, it's under-read despite the relevance. One of the most striking series shared by Weaver is The Cult of Mediocrity. It's a good series to follow, especially for any popular bloggers who didn't make the list.

14. Lauren Fernandez is an account executive at Moroch | PR who pulls double duty as a resident specialist in social media. Her work can be found at LAF and the best of it breaks away from what people want to read and centers on real industry need. Specifically, she sees that some social media experts are leading their lemming followers off the edge of a cliff and wants to do something about it. I give her credit. I'm inclined to let them fall.

15. Carl Haggerty is an enterprise architect at the Devon County Council who sometimes shares some heavy-handed and important topics at Carl's Notepad. Frequently, the posts revolve around U.K. government without the polarization of politics experienced in America. But more than government, his content tends to be refreshing because it covers how organizations interact with people. Something many Web developers might consider.

16. Adam Singer is responsible for The Future Buzz, which is a blog about Web marketing combined with public relations strategies. While he frequently makes the case for popularity measures (and why marketers need it), Singer demonstrates enough "why" to remind people he is not advocating popularity over expertise. What you'll also find is a lot of bullet-laced posts that make for easy reading, even if that reading isn't always memorable.

17. Dan Zarrella is a social, search, and self-dubbed viral marketing scientist who has built a solid following on The Social Media Marketing Handbook. While his writing is filled with social media buzz terms, including several he coined himself, you'll still find fresh content with an emphasis on sociology, even if he doesn't always link the two fields. More importantly, Zarrella is persistent in wanting to move social media away from soft-focus fantasies that popular marketing bloggers tend to preach.

18. John Jantsch is another one of those folks who most people know. Duct Tape Marketing rightfully pinned him down as one of the world's most practical marketers. Practicality is important if you hope to make a case for communication to the executives you hope will pay for it. At the same time, Jantsch teaches public relations firms and communicators something most forget. At the end of the day, communication companies are businesses too. Act like it.

19. John Bell, who heads up the global 360-degree influence team for Ogilvy Public Relations, demonstrates that not only can large agencies learn new media, but they can quickly become experts by applying proven strategies to new platforms. Digital Influence Mapping Project provides the focus for his work and the work being done at Ogilvy in this space.

20. Sree Sreenivasan, professor and dean of student affairs at Columbia Journalism School, contributes to places like DNA info and Mashable. While being a contributor makes his work harder to track, it's very clear Sreenivasan has tasked himself with helping journalists evolve at a pace that will help preserve the best of the profession.

21. Kelly Day is an associate creative director at BG Creative, the second team member to be included from its Don't Drink The Kool-Aid Blog. Although her simply stated insights into Facebook tend to be more popular than her tips for better creative, we're likely to attribute that to social media readership more than merit. The content contributions are equally solid and more designers will likely find her over time. (Sure wish she would update her blog-to-Twitter link soon).

22. Gini Dietrich is the CEO of Arment Dietrich. You'll find most of her work on F.A.D.S.. What you'll find is a blend of fresh, friendly commentary and marketing from a business perspective. While it didn't make a pick, read Predictable Success: The Lifecycle of Successful Businesses for a sense of her style.

23. Larry Kim, a search marketing enthusiast and founder of WordStream. You're more likely to find his written work elsewhere, places like the Search Engine Journal, but he always brings a unique perspective as a software engineering and search specialist.

24. Louis Gray is the managing director of new media for Paladin Advisors Group, which provides marketing, public relations, sales processes, and new media services to its clients. He shares observations about technology and innovation from Silicon Valley. What you'll find is exactly that, presented as a conversational diary recapping the news. The only difference is that this diary and scrapbook of sorts is open to the public and includes some interesting insights.

25. Aaron Brazell is author of the WordPress Bible and comes from an I.T. background, and was one of he first tech bloggers to capture a communication audience too. It's hard to pin down precisely why Technosailor lost some of its lift. Mostly, Brazell still provides a good read in between conference buzz and some gut guesses that fall short of the mark.

26. Jeff Bullas is a Web marketing practitioner with plenty of useful information that is usually presented as some sort of list at Jeffbullas's Blog. Almost all of it starts with a number of something, which is often the kind of stuff we avoid. However, what works is that some of these lists are backed by real data and time consuming research. It's not puff, and almost always includes new ideas for using various free tools to do it.

27. Barbara Nixon, Ph.D., teaches at Georgia Southern University online and Southeastern University offline. Her blog, Public Relations Matters, frequently covers public relations basics and entry level ideas on social media. What works is that she often covers what many social media experts don't know enough about to write about.

28. Shel Holtz has always positioned himself on the front end of technology and communication. It has served him well over the years, and will for many more years to come. A Shel of My Former Self is often a testament to that. What you'll find, in between the podcast marketing posts, are social media adoption tests for the sake of adoption and strategic communication applied to social media. Other times, however, you'll find Holtz to be surprisingly stubborn in framing up the world as it "should be."

29. David Meerman Scott saves much of his best work for places other than Web Ink Now, which tends to feature a much lighter sampling of topics than you might find on places like The Huffington Post, where he reminds us he still has the skills of a journalist.

30. Amber Naslund has become best known as director of community for Radian6, but her start with Altitude was a real pleasure to watch. What you'll find is that her content is engaging because it is infused with her infectious personality. Even when she retreads topics, it feels fresh and clearly articulated, especially as someone who learned most of her social media and marketing skills on the fly.

31. MarketingProfs, headed by Ann Handley, provides surprisingly solid content despite the irritating sign-in page. Sure, not all of the content is as fresh as you might find direct from contributors and not all authors are clearly identified. However, MarketingProfs keeps a pulse on public relations and marketing, with the occasional surprise breakthrough the noise moment thanks to objective research.

32. Jennifer Riggle is a public relations professional with CRT/tanaka, which is the firm that inherited The Buzz Bin from Geoff Livingston. She is intensely focused on mobile adoption and medical as it applies to social media. Sure, she writes other stuff, but her interests in these areas shine through with some solid thought, possibly ensuring that The Buzz Bin will eventually retain relevance beyond the originator. Good to see.

33. Chris Brogan is president of New Media Labs and many people in communication fields read his blog. Interestingly enough, though, only one post (though others were close) on the last day of the quarter cut through the clutter. That's not to say the Brogan blog isn't relevant. However, if you have ever heard him speak, you already know that the blog, nowadays, has become Brogan light.

34. Jonathan Fields, at a glance, comes across as one of the growing number of pop marketers that tend to capture some popularity because they are fun. But then the more you read Awake At The Wheel, you begin to realize that pop marketing packaging fuels some bigger ideas if you take the time to look for them, including his tribute to ten dead dudes.

35. Brian Solis truly owns the buzz term PR 2.0. What you'll find in between the self-promotion and his head-in-the-clouds preachiness approach to social media is one of the best comprehensive recappers of other people's research. He takes huge amounts of data and summarizes it without slashing it to sound bites like most people, making those posts well worth wading through the rest of it.

36. Jeremy Meyers is the only social media purist to make this list, but he does so deservedly. He didn't make it for his own content, but rather his uncanny ability to find some of the most important and overlooked content via his feed on posterous. It sets him apart because while many people guess at the future of the net, Meyers tends to find what is already happening.