A few weeks back, I posted then original PR People, Tips & Resources post. Several of you submitted additional people, espectially, whom you thought should be included. I’ve vetted, added and here, for your enjoyment, is a new and improved list of PR goodness.

Again, please use the comments to let me know if you have a submission for the list. I will periodically update… though it’s approaching the size where a formal list of some sort might make more sense.

PR tips and PR People

Twitter hashtag #PRtips and one of the main contributors, @CyndyHoenig

@Kristen_Okla (Kristen Turley, Oklahoma practioner and PRSA leader)

@techpr (Marivic Valencia)

@dustinpyeatt (Dustin Pyeatt)

@rcrissinger (Rob Crissinger)

@wiredprworks (Barbara Rozgonyi)

PRSA on Twitter

PRSA web site

@SternalPR (John Sternal)

@HowellMarketing (Amy D. Howell)

@AnneDGallaher (Anne D. Gallagher)

@SueYoungMedia and her website (Sue Young)

@Barb_G (Barbara Gibson)

@PRMoxie (Mary Lower)

@MarisaCorser (Marisa Corser)

@worob and his blog (especially great for students, young PR pros and those transitioning in) (Andrew Worob)

@ShannonPaul and her website (Shannon Paul)

@ConversationAge (Valeria Maltoni) and her site

PR wonderfulness

PR Sarah Evans web site

The Fight Against Destructive Spin

PR Squared site (and also @TDefren on Twitter)

Ragan Communications (and also @MarkRaganCEO on Twitter)

Brian Solis web site

The 360 Days in a PR Life blog

PR Breakfast Club blog

Arik Hanson’s site, Communication Conversations

For how not to do PR

The Bad Pitch Blog (not always work suitable, but always targeted and often really funny)

At Ignite Tulsa last month, I talked about “Why Passion Doesn’t Change Anything.” I wanted people to come away with the idea that passion, by itself, doesn’t accomplish change, or make love true, or make you money. In other words, don’t be passionate; be effective. And now, those of you out there (and you know who you are) who have an idea, a passion, a… something you know can succeed, have your chance to go be effective.
The 2010 Tulsa Entrepreneurial Spirit award is now open for submissions. You need not be based in Tulsa to enter or win, but you have to be willing to open or expand into Tulsa if you’re from somewhere else.

The reason this program is so worth it for people who have an idea, or who have a business that needs some help to get to the next level is the process… going through it helps entrants clarify their vision, prepare a business plan that works and gets the attention of potential investors, loan officers, etc., and the 25 entrants who advance to the semifinal stage get invaluable (free!) business coaching to help them launch and grow. And that’s how raw passion gets transformed into something that matters… and makes money.

Sponsored by Spirit Bank and Tulsa Community College, the program is in its fourth year and will award this year’s winner $30,000. Two runners-up are also selected and awarded smaller cash prizes.

Don’t wait… if you have an idea, or a business that needs to grow (and you’ve been in business for less than 5 years) the time is now. Go unleash your big idea and start using your passion to be effective.

Submissions accepted until May 13th.

And that’s a very good thing. Unfortunately, it means that I haven’t had much time this week to write. I have a post titled, “What I’m Doing Differently and Why,” half-written and definitely not ready to share. One of the things it talks about is making sure the activities that build my business and build community don’t take a backseat to the “urgent” things that often take over chunks of time on any given day. As you can see, that’s one I’m continuing to work on… !

In the meantime, I am going to share this post with you: Crisis Communication: When You Can’t Escape. It’s one bit of public writing I did get accomplished this week, and I hope you’ll take a moment, read it, and let me know what you think. It’s not only for PR people… if you’re in business for yourself or working for a company in any kind of public-facing role, it’s applicable.

Oh… if you have ideas, tips, or commiseration you want to share on the whole, “What I’m Doing Differently and Why” post idea, please tell me. I’m hoping we can all help each other do better.

Happy Friday!

I was getting ready to write the second post in the DIY Brand Audit for Businesses post when I wondered… since the first one didn’t exactly generate conversations, comments, crazy sharing… maybe I’d better evaluate.

I’m just wondering what you would like to see/hear/explore in this space. The blog is going to evolve in the new year as I evaluate what posts seem to have been the most interesting or useful to you guys (based on traffic, comments, shares…)

What do you want to see in this space?

It feels like more “how this connects to that” posts and more posts about marketing trends and how they affect businesses.

I know everyone, at some point, does a “What do you want me to write about?” post. It’s not so much about the writing as it is about finding topics and ideas you want to talk about… because the best posts are the ones where we all learn from each other through the conversation.

Thanks for sharing some of your time, attention and thoughts with me. I truly appreciate it.

Yeah… bubbles. Stay with me… you’ll see

After another furious #blogchat on Twitter where smart people were discussing the differences between passion and influence as it pertains to blogging and why (if?) it mattered, some things I’ve been thinking about began to crystallize. And because it’s what I do when that happens, here I am writing about it.

Before we dive in, thanks to @spikejones for inspiring some of this, @MackCollier for #blogchat (and lots of inspiration over time) and @edosegal, who wrote the ambient streams post I read recently.

First, some definitions (well, mine, anyway):

Passion (in the marketing sense) = commitment to/attachment to a brand, product, idea or position regardless of compensation.

It’s a feeling, an internal condition. It cannot be manufactured or externally created. Passion is a choice the individual makes… I choose to love Godiva dark chocolate. Godiva hasn’t asked me to love it, paid me to love it, and doesn’t particularly care that I do so… I, on an individual level, am not influential in their marketing planning. (Oversight on their part? Perhaps… )

Influence = ability to affect other’s perceptions or awareness.

Influence CAN be purchased/created. It’s an external perception… Billions of ad dollars are spent every year trying to influence the awareness and perception of potential customers. Is it possible for an individual blogger to have influence in a space he or she is not passionate about? Long term, I think the answer is no. Bloggers who have influence in a particular space usually have earned that right through good information, solid community, earned respect. Not always… because, as we’ve already said, influence can be purchased. Programs and tools and schemes exist to “grow your blog” and “get thousands of followers” to jump-start influence.

At least initially. Some of the current “stars” of the social media world, for instance, may not be around in a year or two. If they aren’t passionate about the relevant, interactive web, they will run out of things to say that resonate with the community marketers are hoping to reach through their influence. If they stop resonating, they will lose influence, and their relevance.

Someone who is passionate about an idea or product or brand keeps on learning, and loving, and sharing experiences and interactions born of the love affair. And those shared moments will typically only resonate with those who are interested in the same brand or idea. Maybe the audience isn’t in love yet… maybe just experimenting or looking for a first date. That’s where passionate people and influence intersect.

I can be influenced only by those people or messages I choose to pay attention to. Repeat… I can only be influenced by those people or messages I choose to pay attention to.

Why do I care what TechCrunch thinks in general about [insert brand here]? I don’t. I don’t care about what TechCrunch thinks about a lot of things. But I <3 Apple products. I tend to pay attention to what TechCrunch says about all things Apple… I am passionate about that brand and TechCrunch’s opinion is more relevant to me when they are talking about Apple than when they are talking about XBox360. I choose to pay attention… and then TechCrunch has a chance to influence me and my opinion.

What is missing from all this influence and passion is a way to filter relevance. It’s a fact that humans filter information and stimuli all the time. The web’s current model is based on active search:

Random thought triggers question…

Brain can’t supply answer…

Enter phrase into Google, or more typical for me, Twitter (or your weapon of choice)…

Scan results… (FOR WHAT… ?)

Click on choice that seems THE MOST RELEVANT to me (I trust the source/know the source or believe Google’s method for determining importance and value)

The future of the web, I believe, won’t be based on active search, but on ambient streams. Already, who I choose to follow on Twitter creates ambient streams that bubble up the information I care about. As more and more of the web dabbles in relevance… more information will find us rather than us going to look for it.

Who we choose to be influenced by (who we let control our information streams) will matter a great deal more than it does now. I suspect we’ll get more picky, too. More fragmented as a marketplace, more determined to know what we want to know and not see the rest. How will we determine who makes the cut? Passion… who we believe. Influence… who we trust. And relevance… who we perceive to “understand who and where we are in life.”

Already, the web can tell where I’m located, who is tweeting or geotagging near me, what sites/locations/stores I’ve visited recently (and if I positively or negatively reviewed them), and who I’m choosing to be influenced by (who am I connected to on Twitter, Facebook, Ning groups, LinkedIn, etc). How far off is that one app/program/site that will analyze that info, assign relative relevance scores to the possible streams of info, and show me what is relevant to me based on ME, not on Google’s basic algorithms?

Heady, and scary, stuff. What do you think… what’s next?

This post is inspired by a conversation with @billhandy and @freshpeel on Twitter, and by Bill’s (lengthy, but good) post about the science behind communities.

My key takeaways/thoughts on the subject are:

Bigger isn’t necessarily better
The ties in your community matter
Work yourself out of a job if you want to matter long-term

Bigger isn’t necessarily better because the value of a community must be defined through a particular set of lenses. Think about the value of your home. The key question is… value to whom? We all think about value of a home as the price we’d get if we sold it to another person interested in living in it. What about the value of your home as potential raw material for a new project? The value of just the land your home is on, to a non-residential user? The value of the goods/furnishing inside? The lens used to evaluate value makes a difference. You need to define the purpose of a community before you can assess its value. If the purpose is to create “a community of bicycle enthusiasts” you need to re-think. You’ve defined who you’re after (bicycle enthusiasts) but not WHY they’ve come and WHAT you hope they’ll do for or be to each other. A better purpose (lens) would be seeking to create “A place where bicycling enthusiasts can share knowledge about the best trails/rides so others can discover and enjoy them, too.”

NOW we have something… we know we’re seeking current riders to anchor the community (new riders would be welcome, but won’t necessarily have the foundational knowledge about best trails/rides to share). We know we’ll need to try to build that community in a space where sharing and organizing information, including potentially maps, photos, written descriptions, even user calendars, will be easy and seamless. We know that search/discovery within the community will be important. AND… if we build it smartly, we can define value to potential marketers of trail-proven cycles, gear, lodging and food/supplies.

ALSO… we have a community built on shared, strong affinity for not just a hobby (cycling) but a particular aspect/segment of that hobbyist community (longer rides/trails/trips). The strength of the ties in your community matter… they’ll drive longevity and advocacy. If people self-identify as belonging to that group, our carefully constructed place should give them a portal to other like-minded individuals and space to share their passion. They’ll seek out others to join who also share that passion if they love the space.

The group’s owner/moderator won’t matter… the group’s own cohesion will serve as glue. If you successfully work yourself out of a job building the community, the value of that community as a sellable, marketable thing increases. “Ownership” can be transferred easily since the group’s members feel ownership… it’s their space. If the community remains a hub-and-spoke connection (each person individually connected to the center, but not many community-member interactions) it’s in danger of becoming irrelevant, regardless of how large it is at the moment. Miley Cyrus had a huge Twitter following. She quit Twitter. Other than tweets lamenting the fact that she’s gone, that community is fast becoming irrelevant on Twitter.

So… to wrap it all up:

Know why you’re building a community, regardless of the venue.

Have a clear purpose and direction and take deliberate actions so you attract the right kind of self-elected community members.

Make it a place where people are there for the THE BIG IDEA so the community won’t falter if you need to back away.

What do you think… how do you best build community?