Today at 3pm I am taking part in a very interesting experiment of a live Q&A session as part of a new site that was recently launched as a partnership between Slate.com, McGraw-Hill and American Express. The feature, called "BizBox" is a one hour hosted online discussion about a book where anyone can log in from Slate and ask a question to the author. This is meant to be a real time stream of questions and discussion (I’ll be online live answering questions), moderated by the editorial team at Slate and funded by Amex Open and McGraw-Hill. The commitment to an author is minimal … just be online for an hour to answer questions directly (basically a late lunch hour if you’re on the east coast).  As a secondary experiment, I’ll also be live twittering during the event to get even more discussion going (my ID is @rohitbhargava).

Here’s the link: http://discuss.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/zforum/05/bizbooks_5.htm

I am excited about the upcoming discussion, but even more so in how this partnership is arranged and the marketing lesson it offers. McGraw-Hill (my publisher) has authors and content. Slate.com has the audience of small business owners, and Amex Open wants to reach this audience. Together they have put together this BizBox series to offer a way for Slate to a richer content experience beyond their own editorial, and made it worth the time investment from an author because they are doing heavy promotion, and also because the time requirement is minimal (ie - no travel). As a result, today’s hosted discussion will likely be a four-way win … for me, McGraw-Hill, Amex and Slate.com. Anytime you can put together a marketing campaign like that, it’s worth paying attention to.*

* And yes, I’d say so even if I wasn’t today’s guest!

Paul Dunay, a fellow marketing blogger and creator of the Buzz Marketing For Technology Podcast just published an interview we did together a few weeks ago. His show is one of the best for BtoB technology marketers looking for a great professional interview series - I highly recommend subscribing to get all of Paul’s updates.

Below is the transcript and notes from our show:

I’ll be speaking on a very interesting panel as part of mesh08 in Toronto today. The event is one of the largest interactive marketing events in Canada and has a wonderful gathering of smart folks, including many that I have not yet met (making this an event that stands out from many others here in the US that attract the same speakers and attendees to every conference). Here’s a description of our panel:

Building a Brand on the Web
As the reach and efficiency of traditional media for marketing purposes continues to decline, companies and marketers alike are questioning how they can build a brand identity without any of the usual tools. What strategies make sense for brands when they move online, and how should they be structured to take advantage of the medium? What are some of the pitfalls of trying to use social media to do so? Join a discussion about these and other issues with Rohit Bhargava, author of the new book “Personality Not Included”, Maggie Fox of The Social Media Group and Michael Garrity of CommunityLend, with Mark Evans, moderator.

Afterwards that evening, social media monitoring firm Radian6 is hosting a get together where I will be giving away several free copies of PNI at The Pogues Irish Pub in downtown Toronto. Here are the details in case you happen to be in Toronto and can join us.

I had the chance to make it out to the iconic Strand bookstore in NY last week and launched a search for PNI. I found two review copies in the Reviewer section of the store … a place where they sell the review copies that the store gets for 50% off of retail. So PNI was selling there at Strand for about $12 - definitely the cheapest I have seen it for sale so far. There were only two copies left when I was there a few days ago, so if you want to save a few bucks and live in NY you better get there fast!

Last week I launched an open call to bloggers to ask questions and do a “virtual interview” with me about the book. I had 55 bloggers take me up on the offer and I recently went through the list and highlighted what I thought were the top 12 interviews. You can see the list below, and vote for your favourite in the poll below. The top five vote getters (and the #1 write-in vote getter) will all get signed copies of the book, and the Blogger with the most votes will get a $100 gift certificate from Amazon.com. Enjoy the interviews and happy voting!

1. Scott Monty | Interview Link
2. Todd Andrlik | Interview Link
3. Kevin Dugan | Interview Link
4. Bruce Reyes-Chow | Interview Link
5. Jonny Goldstein | Interview Link
6. David Berkowitz | Interview Link
7. Krishna De | Interview Link
8. Connie Bensen | Interview Link
9. Ronna Porter | Interview Link
10. Zachary J. Braiker | Interview Link
11. Gaurav Mishra | Interview Link
12. Linda Sherman | Interview Link

Voting will close this Friday at midnight.

The Vote:

As part of the launch of Personality Not Included, this blog will aim to share all kinds of content focused on the theme of marketing for the book …  that personality matters.  Over the next several months (and possibly beyond), you’ll find the following types of content:

• First look at new bonus content created around the book
• An inside preview at all the marketing for the book and latest news
• A special section called BIWIM (Brands I Wish I Mentioned) which profiles great companies that didn’t make it into the book
• Interview series with a range of authors, businesspeople and others
• “Faceless Alerts” that highlight situations of corporate facelessness and suggest alternatives that could help them regain their personalities
• And lots more!

To start, let me point you towards a series of interviews that I just completed with more than 50 bloggers who generously took up my offer to send their 5 questions relating to the book to me for answer that they could publish on their blogs.   The compliation of these answers offers not only an interesting conversation about the nature and importance of personality in business … but also several clues about content in the book, stories behind the stories and exclusive content and insights that I have not shared before.  It would certainly take some time to get through all the interviews … but you can go through and read one or all 55 on my other blog - the Influential Marketing blog.  I’d love to hear what you think of them!