Talking With Tom

Merry Christmas. And welcome to the #LastWord in the 2011 Talking With Tom series of interviews with some of the most well known, and folks who ought to be well known, Digital Thought Leaders.

While you, the reader, voted that Stephen Colbert should be the last word -- that didn't work out. However, I am happy to report that via social media channels alone I was able to contact a producer at The Daily Show who did put me in touch with Mr. Colbert's personal PR team. But that was as far as it got -- seems they didn't deem a Talking With Tom interview of high enough value :-( Needless to say, it goes to show that Social Media channels certainly can be a wonderful conduit to reaching folks you don't yet know.

But poetic irony plays out -- because I'm truly thrilled to bring you a person who honestly, ought to be the last word.

You see, DJ Waldow is not only one of the smartest guys in social media, especially in the email marketing realm, but has been one of the biggest supporters of Talking With Tom since the very beginning. What makes that such a big deal is that, while DJ is now the CEO of Waldow Social -- his own firm -- for most of the year he was the Community Manager for Blue Sky -- a competitor of Emma, the sponsor of Talking With Tom. And I just think the fact he would be such a huge supporter of a competitor's marketing effort is a class act.

I also love DJ's answer because like him, I'm feeling it and wondering if others are too. And if he's right, it really changes the game where social media is involved. So give his answer a quick listen and be sure to stick around to the end when he talks about the coolest part of being a new dad! Great stuff and really shows the guy behind the brand.

Then when you're done.... if you want to dive a little deeper, check out this next video interview. In preparation for the 2012 year of Talking With Tom -- I explored the idea of doing deeper interviews with my subjects. In this inteview below, DJ and I talked more about his ideas behind the social media backlash and how that may or may not effect consumers and marketers. My apologies for the audio/video sync on this -- not sure what happened, but I'll be sure to figure it out before next year!

I want to thank you for playing along in 2011 and invite you to stick around in 2012.

But more importantly, I'd LOVE TO HEAR what you thought about 2011 and YOUR IDEAS for how I can make this blog more valuable to you in 2012.

As you can see, one of the ideas I'm toying with is longer form interviews with one or more thought leaders (at a time) to dig deeper into the issues that we all should be discussing and learning about. Do you like that idea? Are there other ideas that you like better? Maybe move away from video and go with a straight Podcast (audio) version? Seriously, let me know.

I'm going to take a couple of weeks off while I revamp for 2012 and seek out a SPONSOR for the 2012 year -- but stay tuned... I'm planning to be back in January with something interesting and I'd love to have you join me.

And speaking of sponsors, I want to take this last minute to thank Emma. Last January you took a huge leap of faith and sponsored this effort. You took a leap and came along for this journey and at every step you were nothing but supportive. I could not have asked for more from a sponsor and am eternally grateful to you for making this wonderful journey possible.

It has changed my life, my career and created such wonderful possibilities for me -- and I have you to thank for it.

Peace. Goodwill and Happy New Year to each and every one of you.

God Bless.

  -Tom

Really excited to tell you what happened this week on my quest to interview Stephen Colbert!

I actually made some headway. So watch the update and then cross your fingers and toes for me.

This week I'm doing something a tad different. Instead of interviewing a digital thought leader to find out what they think is "next," I'm going to tell you what is coming next... well at least here at Talking With Tom. Check out my video below to get all the details.

That's right... YOU get to decide who gets the #LastWord here at Talking With Tom. As I said in the video, the folks over at Emma have started us off with one heck of a list, but if you don't see a name that really grabs you.... feel free to cast a write-in vote. Of course, you'll need to get the vote out amongst your friends, but hey, that's what social media is all about no? So without further fanfare, here is the list of digital thought leaders that the folks at Emma thought would be interesting... and that I'd have a hard time getting to.... so take a peek and then head over to the voting site ez.com/LastWord and cast  your vote for one of the folks on the list below.

• Stephen Colbert, political satirist with 2.5 million Twitter followers
• Bill Gates, chairman of Microsoft
• Arianna Huffington, president and editor-in-chief AOL's Huffington Post Media Group
• Steve Jobs, an inspiration for all -- the crazy one we will all miss
  
• Marissa Mayer, vice president of location and local services for Google
• Kevin Rose, co-founder of Digg, Revision3, Pownce and Milk
• Chris Sacca, Silicon Valey's leading venture capitalist
• Sheryl Sandberg, chief operating officer of Facebook

You can vote as many times as you wish, so go cast your vote today and let me know who you think should have the last word. And do me a favor by telling all of your friends. I'm truly interested to find out which of these digital thought leaders you and your friends think will be the most interesting interview.

Thanks for your support of the project.

   -Tom

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As always, a big thanks to the email marketing company, Emma, for underwriting the costs to produce this little project. If you want to learn more about Emma and their email marketing system, just click that link you just read.