Straight to the Point Podcast: Hank Dearden of Capital Cabal

When I joined Strategic Communications Group almost seven years ago to head up the firm's marketing and business development efforts, one of the first tasks I had to take on was identifying venues where I could interact with local technology and marketing executives. The year was 2004, and most of the tech networking events in DC had been swept away by the dot-com bust. However, a revival was about to occur, lead by one man, Hank Dearden.

I'm happy that Hank has taken some time to sit down with me and share his experiences standing up and growing a professional networking organization, The Capital Cabal. While I am very much a proponent of social media and online communications as a way to develop and maintain relationships, in person interaction is absolutely key to any B2B or B2G sales and marketing campaign.

What did we cover?

• How important are networking events in the DC area?
• What are the marketing strategies he used to grow 2nd Tuesday with little to no budget?
• How important is it to include off-line or face-to-face (FTF) events in your overall marketing mix?
• Is the DC area tech community strong and growing or still suffering from the effects of the recession?

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New BlogTalkRadio podcast with Robert Johnson, CEO of Cimcor

I'm excited to have had the opportunity to sit down and record Straight to the Point podcasts with a large number of marketing and business experts over the years. Some folks I've gotten to know pretty well after their session. But there are literally hundreds of people I respect and I've known for years that haven't yet appeared on STTP, for whatever reason. My latest podcast is with just such a person- Robert Johnson, founder of IT security vendor Cimcor Technologies.

Imagine the power of a self healing enterprise network. A corporate or government environment where hacks, attacks and other security risks would be more than merely detected. The network would automatically take corrective response…in near real time. In this new podcast Robert does more than ask you to imagine. He discusses the self-healing capabilities of networks…today.

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Great List of Podcasting Resources

I'm not sure how many of you subscribe to Chris Brogan's RSS feed or his "traditional" email newsletter. I've always found Chris to be a common-sensical, well thought out source of information on social media trends, tools and tips. His latest newsletter was a valuable source of info, as always. Feel free to sign up for it here.

In his latest issue, he listed a bunch of podcasting tools, some of which I've used and some I have not. With Chris's permission, here is his list:

Again, sticking with my goal of making all podcasting content for this newsletter, let's give you five podcasting tools to check out.

1. Odeo. Want a simple way to record a podcast on your computer? This is about as simple as it gets.
2. Audacity. This is the opposite of easy, but it's very flexible, and a podcaster's best free multi-platform audio editing tool.
3. TubeMogul. You've recorded a video and you want to put it in more places than just YouTube? This is your tool.
4. Flip Video Camera. For cheap money, this is the tool of choice for SIMPLE video recording. Nearly indestructible, easy to use, and I would buy these for every field employee or remote sales person, if that was a need.
5. Blog Talk Radio. Want a simple way to record a live audio podcast with multiple guests, callers, etc? BlogTalkRadio is the reigning champion at present, followed closely by TalkShoe. Both are great.

There you have it. Five for the podcasters. (Sure, if you're already podcasting, you probably know about all these. What would an ADVANCED 5 tools be? You tell me!)

As some of you know, I started a quasi-podcasting series of interviews and events with marketers last year and conducted interviews into this year. You can search YouTube, GoogleVideo and BlogTalkRadio, or find them on my company's website. I'm starting up a new list of people to interview over the next few months, as I'm intrigued by the impact of social media on marketing budgets. Social media, as I'm sure most of you know, has shifted from a plaything of nerds to a seriously powerful tool for business communications.

Two questions:

1) are there other tools besides the ones Chris listed that you find valuable?

2) after listening/viewing my interviews, it occurred to me that a year ago all of them admitted to reviewing social media tools but none had funded any programs. What new questions do you think I should ask senior marketing executives? How many social media programs do you think have been funded...and at what budget level? Should PR and social media be integrated or kept separate? How about social media efforts and the sales team?