Communication Agents Initiative

The Road To Powerful Instant Vertical Communities: Personal Media Aggregators

Personal Media Aggregators are the road to create instant-vertical-communities by way of becoming fulcrum points around which news, commentary, discussion, and networking opportunities around a very specific topic, brand, celebrity or writer can become a cohesive aggregating force.

Photo credit: Sorin Brinzei

Somewhere at the crossroad between personalized RSS news aggregators, of which a few have appeared during 2004, and what Marc Canter defined as DLAs or Digital LifeStyle Aggregators, that this new community-enabling technology finds it place.

Differently than DLAs, PMAs are not centered around your personal life. While Marc Canter envisioned tools that would have allowed the easy recording, management and access to personal image libraries, music, clips, preferred feeds and more, PMAs are centered around a product, a service, a company, a celebrity. PMAs bring together the different communication and interaction modes we have recently started using, allowing instant vertical communities to be rapidly created around them.

As I have stretched my view of RSS, blogs, wikis and real-time communication technologies, I see these tools not merely as deluxe information carriers but rather as flywheels around which communities of interest can be created in shorter time and with greater success than before.

Imagine providing opportunity for bulletin boards, members profile creation and sharing, and all that which would enhance the opportunities for the community to bond together around multiple thematic information channels and to be able to interact with itself at different richness levels (IM, text chat, blog comments, discussion list, forum, one-to-one audio and video chat, webcasts, etc.).

In simple words, the personl media aggregator allows a constituency to integrate and distribute selected news feeds, while aso bringing together vertical blogs, discussion forums, wiki spaces, social/business networking, instant messaging, 1-to-1 voice and video chat, webcasting venue, and a "protected" P2P network for exchanging files in multiple ways. As a matter of fact the communication, exchange and community-supporting technologies that could be integrated in such a PMA could even be more.

But the potential of pushing the envelope of what RSS aggregators into cross-platform, self-contained applications (or web-based personalized mini-portals) has yet to see the light.

To facilitate the popularization of such new ideas it is always good to describe in as much detail as possible what one foresees ahead of the others, and let the blogosphere take your idea for criticism, challenge, support and refinement.

So, what would be a PMA (personal media aggregator) be like and what would it do for you that is not already possible?

What Is The Communication Agents Initiative?

The Communication Agents Initiative is an advanced hands-on learning program targeted at talented communicators, would-be independent reporters and journalists, and particularly at social activists.

"This hands-on learning program has also been designed for any talented social communicator who believes that a unique time and opportunity has come where with innovative communication skills, unique new methods and advanced communication and networking technologies powerful changes can be achieved in society with immensely greater efficiency and cost-effectiveness than with advertising, traditional marketing, offline campaigning and promotion work."

The Communication Agents Initiative is a project that intends to provide support to those individuals who can affect social change and who can instigate positive action toward the improvement of social life on our planet.

Individuals who want to make an ethically guided difference in the world through their communications skills find in this Initiative:

1) A strategically designed learning path that includes publishing, research and networking activities during the arc of one year of actual research, writing, publishing and networking work.

2) A multiple-step communication strategy that takes them through all of the critical phases of a Communication for Change project.

3) a small but intellectually rich community of Communication Agents working across the whole spectrum of change areas addressed by this initiative and on which one can rely on and exchange with.

4) A private online forum to discuss and meet, find tools and resources, answers to technical questions, and friends to discuss critical communication issues with.

5) Personal, one-to-one technical and logistic support so that Communication Agents are treated like kings and queens and have NOT to worry about anything but what they can already do best: review, comments, aggregate, connect, re-write, report, propose, expose, call to action.

6) A ready-to-be-used professionally-looking Web site, much like this one, where they self-publish articles, reviews, commentary and ideas immediately.

Communication Agents Learning Objectives

The CA Initiative provides accepted individual participants with a personal training partnership with me, Robin Good, and having the following learning objectives:

1) To become a skilled online communicator, capable of utilizing the most effective skills, methods and tools available today.

2) To become an effective researcher, aggregator and organizer of the existing immense amount information resources available online.

3) To become a powerful virtual networker who can rapidly identify and link-up with like-minded people and resources and who can swiftly team-up to initiate specific concerted action on selected issues and problems.

The training partnership lasts twelve months and it leads learning participants to "graduate" as full Communication Agents and then to move onto yet to be designed higher levels of learning, specialization or more likely into coordinating and promoting large sponsored campaign and initiatives.

Of course any Communication Agent remains free to move on into utilizing its newly learned know-how independently of the Initiative and to apply the knowledge and tools mastered during the learning program in whatever best and most appropriate endeavours sHe may feel drawn to support.

The Publishing Toolkit

Just as a perfect complement to hands-on learning approach utilized in this training, I am providing each learning CA with a small publishing toolkit (Sepp would probably say: A spage-age control and command center) accessible directly from any computer (PC or Mac) and allowing learning-CAs to publish online their articles, reviews, calls to action, campaign promotions with maximum immediacy and ease of use.

Such CA publishing toolkit is accessed through a private Internet page reserved for each CA. From that page Communication Agents can completely manage their Web site. The toolkit is complemented by an easy-to-use desktop-based tool which allows you to work when offline and provides also for greater editing and formatting control.

There are no servers to worry about, no FTP, no Geocities or Tripod accounts with ads everywhere, no Yahoogroups, no HTML coding to learn, no design issues to worry of N-O-T-H-I-N-G (CAs can choose among a limited number of customizable options or can order a completely custom design).

No technical issues. You need to worry ONLY about writing about the things you know best. Things that will make your network of readers think, question, and act intelligently to change our present world situation.

I know as a writer, how difficult it is to block or hold an inspiration for a piece, or to maintain the same level of understanding and vision for a complex subject you need to report about. Yes, I take good notes, but the ability to write the article, comment or editorial in the moment that the idea strikes or that you land on the news page that carries a critical story is absolutely invaluable.

Examples of Communication Agents At Work

Some examples of what a Communication Agent Web site does and looks like.

Can you identify (in any other possible area for change ) with what these three guys are trying to do?

Josef Hasslberger (from Germany - posts from Italy)
Health Supreme
http://www.newmediaexplorer.org/sepp

Chris Gupta (from Canada)
Share The Wealth
http://www.newmediaexplorer.org/chris

Ivan Ingrilli (from Italy)
Grillo Parlante
http://www.newmediaexplorer.org/ivaningrilli

For more background info on the Communication Agents Initiative please look at:

The Coming Of Communication Agents
A critical commentary of "Blogging and the eCommunication Paradigm" by Jose Luis Orihuela University of Navarra (Pamplona, Spain) Professor Orihuela provides a very interesting and valuable paper on the new universe of communication created by independent individuals around the world, who by way of a precise social and cultural need have chosen to become the new, unique, trusted and most-up-to-date sources of critical information available. Bloggers, webloggers and the universe they create is a phenomenon of such importance for our immediate future, hardly anyone is grasping its implications fully. In this humble attempt at providing some differing viewpoints on the topic I take what I would consider an established assessment on the blog universe and the new media to launch some critical comments and to open up some new questions to reflect upon.

Communication Agents
Somebody just asked me: "Hey Robin, but what are these Sharewood Tidings?" I replied: "The Sharewood Tidings news section is Robin Good's daily post about ideas, concepts, tools and resources that can get me and you closer to become the critical Communication Agents we have chosen to be. Sharewood - The new virtual place where information and resources are shared without first considering what is provided in return. Tidings - Insider information and Good news coming from Sharewood." A simple romantic name gives me the greatest opportunity for spreading critical questions, ideas and Good news and resources through a real-time publishing channel like it was never possible before. If you want to find out more about me and my mission here is the article to read.

How To Become A Communication Agent
As I have been studying and learning much in my ten fields of interest the amount of Good content available in each one is quite significant. While so far the content has been helping Web surfers of all kinds coming from search engines with specific questions, my audience is gradually but rapidly changing to include a great number of people who want to communicate better and more effectively while increasing their reach and effectiveness. In this light I have decided to change my "Vista Points" (content categories), which you see listed on the left side of my Robin Good's site pages, into "How Tos" for Communication Agents. Here I am listing the "How Tos" categories that intend to use. My goal is to try to cover a comprehensive and sensible set of areas I am very familar with to provide a conundrum of what it takes to become an effective Communication Agent. Am I forgetting something?

The Road To Communication Agents
I am trying to define as well as I can what is the road to becoming effective Communication Agents. Here are what I see as being the stages or roles that an interconnected individual can decide to take on. Initially, it would appear to me that there is indeed a sequence or rather a set of stages which a Communication Agent would likely go through. It is also perfectly fine that some of these roles remain static for individuals that identify with them their actual mission.

The Coming of Communication Agents - The Offer
Hi to each one of you, magic messengers of our time. Here is Robin, and I have something interesting to tell you. I am not here just to add up to the ongoing noise. There is a lot of information to digest and a lot to learn to make this world go where we want it to, and I am indeed aware how each one of you is already doing a great deal to help in this direction. You have not only been passing critical and hard-to-find information to the friends in your network, but you have also proactively invested your time and best energies to write, explain, summarize and facilitate other people understanding of the issues at stake. Have you not? I have thought of you, and of specifically the five of you, Emma, Chris, Tjarko, Ivan and Claudio, because I saw firsthand how dedicated and passionate you are to the mission you have chosen to follow. Your integrity and desire to help other by passing on, exposing, and pointing to hard-to-identify alternative resources and solutions is very valuable.

On The Road To Communication Agents - First Stop
Some of you have recently followed my personal initiative called Communication Agents, targeted at empowering a small group of talented communicators to become more effective at what they were already doing, mostly through email and personal contacts. What I have openly offered to them and to anybody else who had wanted to -pick up my offer was the opportunity to have a full mini-Web site (I conscioulsy avoided using the word blog not to turn them off with a technical term) in which they could have posted their know-how, reviews, commentary and articles with extreme ease of use, no technical issues to deal with and with maximum immediacy. As Josef, Ivan and Chris took on my proposal I have spent 48 hours setting up everything they needed on my server and then I have given them precise instructions for taking the first step into independent publishing.

How Are Communication Agents Different From Those Who Publish Weblogs
Communication Agents have some special advantages: Not only they have an effective publishing system and a personal guide like me as their personal partner, but they also follow a specific pathway that guarantees them some unique critical traits that differentiates them sharply from any other Web publisher, journalist or blogger. Communication Agents have a unique profile and a set of peculiar characteristics that differentiates them from all other online publishers.

Key Benefits 101

Key Benefits 101

Why would I ever want to spend the money and apply to this learning program?

The only sensible reasons for ayone to apply and sign-on this advanced communication learning program are the following:

a) Reach
You want to reach as many people as possible, not just a few hundred of them. You want to reach across nations and continents and make your message easily accessible to as many people as possible.

b) Exposure
You want to have as much exposure as possible. You want your content to "make the news" and your site to be seen and reviewed by others. You want your best posts appearing on other sites and your news feed appearing next to Reuters and BBC.

c) Knowledge
You want to be able to be always up-to-date while not depending on mainstream controlled news. You want to create your indipendednt network of news agents you trust and consolidate the process of getting critical information from all of them at a click of your mouse.

d) Network
You want to know and network with more like-minded individuals who can help you get where you want to go. You want to be able to easily discover new possible partners and other organizations and individuals working along your lines.

e) Speed - Immediacy
You want to be fast and responsive. You don't want to be bogged down by technology and bureaucracy. You want to act swiftly, rapidly and with maximum ease. You want to be able to post new reports and breaking news in less than one minute or from any location on earth. You want to be able to post from your PC, Mac from an Internet cafe, a mobile phone or from an in-flight airplane.

The key benefits of participating in this advanced communication learning program are:

1) Learning by-doing the communication skills, methods and tools that are not part of any curriculum yet. This is an experimental multidisciplinary program in effective online communication and campaigning. It allows an individual to reach extreme visibility, exposure and, when deserved, "authority" on the Internet.

2) You learn by doing what it means to:

a) write articles that get indexed to Google in the same day,
b) get re-published on more sites that you have ever thought of,
c) get new inbound links without you asking for them,
d) build automatically a fast-growing subscriber list, and
e) create an open dialogue with like-minded people like you on the Internet.

Is there another course that offers this?

3) You exercise and master what you already do best in your normal life by using cutting-edge instruments and techniques that magnify the effect and reach of your message by several orders of magnitude.

Some spontaneous testimonials of what the experience looks like after 6-weeks of pre-testing it come from those who are already on-board and read what they say.

This is better than a university Master!

"There is no other place where you can learn so effectively how to rapidly become the ethical, independent, much sought reporter and change agent you have chosen to be."

"Here is the real learning-by-doing while discovering with like-minded people the best way to achieve increased awareness and positive change."

4) Unique communication skills and methods that give your words unlimited reach and visibility. Immediate indexing inside Google and other major search engines, integrated page optimization for search engines, news and content syndication are just a few of the buzzwords that you should make your eyes slam wide open while you click on the Apply button below.

As a Communication Agent you truly get access and exposure to cutting-edge communication strategies, tactics, methods and best practices that can extend the reach and visibility of your ideas by several orders of magnitude!

Thorugh the learning journey in the first year you learn how to "make the news" and how to have your content automatically appear on sites of people you don't even know. Discover how Google indexes and makes available what you write in the same day you write it! Learn how to have your supporters receive your news the moment you push the "publish" button. Appear on major news sites and build tremendous personal credibility and reputation while doing this.

5) You instantly become an independent online publisher/reporter with your own Web site. You get to build build your personal, professionally-looking Communication Agent Web site (see real examples below). I provide you with the infrastructure, design, hosting and logistical support and you just input the content: articles, interviews, reports, mini-guides, list and indexes, reviews, dossiers and more.

What's the big fuss about this?
Try having an idea and try to publish it online the moment you have it. Come on, try...
What about encountering a great article in the news and wanting to write a rebuttal of it right then and there. Can you do that?

What I am pointing you to look at is the difficulty and complexity with which we are normally confronted when we want to publish something on the Web. Unless we are HTML specialists or enjoy ourselves the thrill of getting our hands dirty with technology, the road to publish online (or offline for that matter) has really been impervious for most.

But the Communication Agents Initiative changes all this by leveraging the CMS/Weblogging technology and making available to you a set of simple tools that literally give the power to publish news anytime and from anywhere (any PC, Mac, from any location on earth).

I have long used and tested these technologies to be willing to take completely on me the load of installing and maintaining everything you need to make this possible.

6) You are not alone. You can tap into this growing exclusive little network of like-minded people that are working at making a solid difference and at changing the world for the better just as you do. You can discuss, exchange, and even talk and meet these other great individuals through our community room our on in any other way you decide to.

Here we have got a great synergy going and you can tap directly into it. This is not a very large community, but you can see very well that is made up by very talented special people who want to make a difference. Each one of the Communication Agents meets, exchanges and is in constant contact with other Agents in hir area of interest and across the whole CA community.

We are having a CA community meeting in which all of us can meet, talk and socialize live while connected online. You are going to love the opportunity to meet and discuss live with others like you without gettung on the phone to do this!

7) You get great personal coaching from me in person, Robin Good. Yes, you have heard me right I will *personally* take care of your setup, preparation, project definition and for just about anything else you will need to make the best of this wonderful journey.

You will be able to email me personally anytime, call me on my mobile, and you are going to be my guest inside my voice room where we can talk privately one-to-one, as if we were sitting next to each other.

You really have a great personal mentor supporting your actions throughout your learning path.

8) Deep service. I and my team treat each one of you like Kings and Queens. I understand and appreciate the meaning of quality service. So for what I can I do really stretch myself and my team to provide the best of personal service we can. You are not just another number. We know you by name and you are one of the people I personally care about.

If you call, I reply, no matter what month of the year or what time of day or night. I am always here, responding to your request and providing whatever help, advice, tool or resource you may need. You can really sleep safely with us as we like to do things in the best and most reliable way possible.

If you ask, I and my team will listen to your request and do our best to make sure that you do get a solution, and not a promise from us.

If you need help, we respond in no time. Given a few hours for sleeping, I am and my team are always available to help you as rapidly and swiftly as we can.

9) You get access to the best know-how from Robin Good. By becoming a Communication Agent you get access to some of my best research work. All of my Robin Good's Mini-Guides are free to you and so is my unfiltered know-how, updates and fresh reports on what methods and tools really make it to do what we have just started designing (a peaceful re-evolution).

10) A great small network of uniquely talented people with which to exchange and synergize. Somebody would call this a Brain Trust or an informal Think Tank but this is even better than those.

This is that small club you have always known you belonged to, and which is finally convening to meet, exchange, learn and design the way toward change in our society.

The individuals in this club have a shared-ethos about life on this planet and about how we should go about changing, not through wars, but through multiple, overlapping and simultaneous communication initiatives working in synergy toward the same goal.

The power to make revolutions used to be in the hands of those that owned a press; now we own ours.

11) Great, uniquely powerful tools. These communication tools I use are so good that you could easily call the digital weapons. Each communication Agent learns from me about these tools and each one gets the opportunity to try them out, adopt them, or keep them on the side for special tactical needs. I can promise you that you are going to have in your hands the very best technology to search, gather, link, sync-up, publish and distribute that is available to me.

If I have it you will have it too. And believe me, if you want to be of any effect through this powerful vehicle called the Internet, you better have some pretty darn effective tools to do it or you will drown in no time at all.

12) You have freedom of action, direction and style. From justice to economy and from environment to health you can engage yourself in one or more of the "Areas for Change" that the Communication Initiative addresses. All of the key areas affecting human life on this planet are relevant issues to address during this mission.

Though Communication Agents have a code of ethics each one is free to communicate, build hir campaigns and promote donations in whichever way it may feel best suited to them.

You can maintain your full independence, style and point of view. The goal is not to coerce you to carry around any specific message, but rather to help you and everyone else who is on this path to be more effective at it in a relatively very short time.

You are free to make a difference in the way that you want.

Through this learning path you get not only to master by doing the most up-to-date, efficient, smart, state-of-the-art methods to research, sync-up, link, network and create initiative around key issues, but you also effectively learn how to affect change and how to promote action in your specific area(s) of interest.

Examples of CAs Web sites
In this partnership training program between you and me you get a fully running professional Web site, customized and personalized for and around you. If you are wondering about what level of Web site I am talking about, just look at the sites of the first three Communication Agents at work:

Sepp's Health Supreme

Chris' Share The Wealth

Ivan's Grillo Parlante (in Italian)

Please note: (These would-be Communication Agents are presently at Step 3 of their CA Path - Total number of steps 9).

You can also look at my Robin Good site, as a good example of another would be-Communication Agent at work (yes, I am still graduating myself), at: http://www.masternewmedia.org/

This may give you a taste of where you may be headed after all.

What Is A Communication Agent?

What Is A Communication Agent?

A Communication Agent is a person who wants to bring about change and who does so by taking full advantage of the publishing, networking and communication opportunities offered by sound guidance, team support and state-of-the-art Internet-based new media technologies and tools.

The new media technologies and tools that can are making this revolutionary communication leap possible include software CMS (content management systems), weblogs, wikis, social networking facilities, group collaboration and live presentation tools, reputation systems as well as hardware peripherals as digital cameras, webcams, audio recording tools and mobile phones.

You do not need to know anything more about such tools as I, Robin Good, will take care of making them completely “transparent” and easy for you to adopt in a gradual, staged approach. You will use as much technologies and tools as you can benefit from in your Communication Agent mission.

Communication Agents are talented communicators that are provided with the methods and tools to communicate, inform, network and attack in a coordinated and highly efficient way.

Robin Good

How Can I Apply?

How can I apply?

Please note: Applications for the first group of Communication Agents starting their learning program in August 2003 will be closed on Tuesday July the 29th at midnight GMT.

To apply as a would-be Communication Agent you need only to take one simple step. Send me a direct email to Robin.Good#masternewmedia.org ( please replace the # with a "@") with the following:

1) Trusted presentation
You need to be introduced by an existing Communication Agent or by someone in direct contact with me or with one of the Communication Agents in our core group (Josef Hasslberger, Chris Gupta, Ivan Ingrilli).
I am looking for a short introductory email or letter that this person is willing to write in your behalf to introduce you to me and to state the reasons why your referrer is recommending you for this project.
If you do not know anyone who can introduce you, do an introduction letter yourself and include in it what is listed at point 2) here below.

2) Introductory mission statement
I want you to write and submit a one page statement of containing:

a) who you are,

b) what background you have in education and business

c) why you want to take on the role of a Communication Agent

d) why do you think that this learning program will be of benefit to you?

d) which one are the Areas for Change that you have most experience with and in which you are most interested in working

e) statement of intent specifying the issue, problem areas or solution development approach(es) that you would like to address initially in the selected Areas for Change.

3) Proof of good writing
It would be nice to see some of your best writing whether they have been published or not. Reports, presentations, white papers, research dossiers and even marketing messages and content from your web pages or emails is acceptable. I am looking to see how well you can express your ideas and at the style and approach you use.

4) Technology setup
I need to know what computer setup you have (PC & Mac), the type of Internet connection (speed, dial-up, ISDN, DSL, cable, etc.), the operating system version, model and version of your digital friend, amount of memory and a short list of applications that you have installed and that you normally use to do your work (word processor, email, browser, etc.). Relative to the Internet is very important for me to know at what speed you connect to the Internet. Please tell me also the brand and version of your software tools so that when I will provide you with instructions I can take into account your specific setup and preferred tools. Please specify also if you have a sound board, speakers and a microphone or a headset that you already have or that you can promptly activate/buy for your computer.

See also "Draft Your Communication Agents Profile" and other relevant examples here below.

The above are criteria by which I can more evaluate and assess more effectively those who can immediately make a difference through this project.

Apply now and provide with as much info as necessary to evaluate your ability to take on this challenging mission.

Here is an example of a tentative application as sent in by the first formal applicant (Paul Swider - USA):

Robin,

I'm pretty sure I'm already one of these, albeit not with your imprimatur. Still, I'd like to find like-minded people so here is what I can contribute by way of application:

I don't know your trusted partners so they cannot present me. A Google search of my name, however, will show that I have a pretty lengthy track record of exactly these sorts of communications. You can also learn more about me from my URL below, which has clips, and from work I do for an innovative media group at
http://greenstar.org/pswider.htm
one sample from there is http://www.greenstar.org/butterflies/index.htm

More about me here:

My communications experience covers writing and presentations to a wide array of high-level audiences.

I have experience with international multilateral organizations as well as private-sector (venture capital) investors. I have made compelling cases of business development to federal agencies, the White House and to foreign governments.

I can relate highly technical details in an accessible format to any audience.

I also have experience in retail marketing communications.

I have made presentations internationally, from the consumer to the board room.

I have developed online marketing campaigns as well as off-line communications for community building and client affiliation. I have created and deployed an affiliate marketing program. I have developed
viral marketing campaigns and incorporated these into overall market strategy. I also have experience in business-to-business strategic marketing communications.

I have considerable experience as a writer and editor, including layout and design for both print and the Web. I have also taught journalism at the university level and done international freelance writing and editing.

I have worked with cutting-edge technology and its marketing applications in a variety of unusual environments. These applications relate directly to market expansion and business/community development.

I'm a true believer in the power of communications.

I think a clear, honest message will win out over manipulation. I also believe that clear, honest messages, cleverly packaged, will soon become de rigeur as consumers of media are rapidly becoming savvy enough to smell through a ruse.

I want to be a Typhoid Mary of constructive, open messages and the means to get them out.

Though there are lots of media and lots of technologies, refreshing the field of communications is the area of change in which I have the greatest interest. I think the time is ripe to take critical thinking retail.

I'm not sure if this is the kind of manifesto your seeking but it's the one I have to offer. I'm not applying for a job, I'm reaching a hand out to someone I perceive to be a fellow traveler. I'll go on as my own agent if that's all there is.

Best,
Paul

sent in on uly 17th 2003