The Lost Art of Writing With a Fountain Pen

Update: For some reason, this is one of the most popular recent posts on my blog.

I noticed Chris when I was walking through National Airport in D.C. yesterday. Sitting at Starbucks, he was writing in an old-fashioned ruled journal with a fountain pen. Nearby, at the ready, was his ink-stained blotter. At the adjacent table was another guy with, predictably, an open laptop.

I was so astonished that I circled back and asked if I could take a

Want To Join Seth Godin’s Pre-Release Tribe For His New Book?

Update: I've just received my invite. I'm member #505 of Seth Godin's Triiibe on Ning. Not sure why there are three "i's" but looks good.

You've got until 11 AM Eastern July 30, 2008. Follow Seth's instructions here. As I understand it, you need to pre-order his new book: Tribes: We Need You To Lead Us, to be published in October. Forward the email receipt to him. Then wait for your exclusive invite. Hope I get one. As always with Seth, this

Lots of Changes: New House, New Site, New Thinking

My new integrated blog / site went live today. The first thing you'll notice is the lack of clutter. The talented folks at Viget convinced me that less is more.

So... no endless stack of widgets in the right-hand column of my blog. No "Digg this" or "Technorati" icons under each blog entry. We thought about this long and hard and I'm glad we did it this way. Note that there are icons for LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and del.icio.us in the

Q & A With Best-Selling Author David Meerman Scott

I've known David Meerman Scott for several years. We've presented together at a conference. He cheered me on when The Corporate Blogging Book was published in 2006. I watched in awe when his New Rules of Marketing & PR was published a year ago in June 2007 and rocketed to best-selling PR book on Amazon.

Turns out New Rules is David's third book and he has a fourth coming out if you count the just released Tuned In, of which he is a co-author.

Fictional Interlude Part 1: Life on the Coast of Maine

I wake to dense fog cocooning our little house. All is not quiet, however. I can hear a fog horn punctuating the distance. A gull caws. Someone is hammering. A car goes by.

Our cottage is not as remote as I'd like (it's on the edge of town) but it's ours, all ours. And a place to think and read and write.

WOM-in-a-Day in the Windy City

My friend Andy Sernovitz had the clever idea of offering a one-day "crash course" in WOM (aka word-of-mouth marketing) in his home town of Chicago. The first one is coming up July 30, 2008. More info and other dates here.

Andy is the author of Word of Mouth Marketing and was founder of WOMMA (Word of Mouth Marketing Association). He's a great speaker and I expect this will be a fun as well as substantive event. He calls it "an active, intense