There are thousands of tech blogs out there.

Few are manned by a 12-year-old.

But “Good Morning Geek” from Max Swisher isn’t a gimmick that challenges child labor laws.

Max knows his stuff and has developed his own voice. 

If you watch the video and say “I could totally imagine this on dolby surround sound!,” then you’re wrong. You can’t imagine it. You have to hear it to believe it. It is scary how music can literally invade you if you have the right quality and the right system.
                               Dolby Ok, go event
                               ”Good Morning Geek,” December 10, 2010  

In the case of the latter, I wanted to learn more about how Max tells his stories. An e-mail exchange and the green light from his mom Val led to a late-morning meeting at Great Bear Coffee in Los Gatos.

After repeated coaxing - I said I don’t like to drink alone - Max joined me with my drink of choice, a hot coco, no whip.

Here’s the first half of the conversation that ensued: 

Q: Let’s start with the cliché kick-off question; what led to you to start your blog?

A: I came across Blogspot (now known as Blogger) from Google and thought this is cool. I started off blogging about random things. After a while, I decided the blog would be more interesting if I focused on technology. 

Q: Because you have a passion for technology?

A: Right. My dad is an IT manager and my mom’s company does technical documentation, so you could say technology runs in the family. I got a used Compaq computer running Windows 98 for my fourth birthday which got me started in tech. 

Q: At four years old?

A: Right. 

Q: How do you capture your own voice in your blog?

A: When I’m writing, I just let it go. It goes straight from my brain to the blog. 

Q: But once you write the first draft, you don’t just hit the publish button?

A: Yes, I do … after I use the spell checker. If I analyze things too much, it won’t be an original thought. 

Q: Who do you consider the audience for your blog?

A: Anyone interested in tech. I’ve noticed lately that I’m getting more teens coming to the blog, but I have all types of readers. I get e-mails from businesspeople who say that my blog has helped them figure something out. That’s a good feeling. 

Q: How do you decide what you’re going to write about?

A: Whenever I get a new product, I write about it. I like free stuff. There’s a lot of software out there that’s free. 

Q: I noticed your review of MindNode. I’ve been looking for a mind-mapping product, so should I check it out?

A: You should. It’s a good product and simple to use.

Sidenote: How does he know my technical acuity borders on sad? 

Q: Are you familiar with the reviews on CNET?

A: Of course. I love CNET. 

Q: How do your reviews differ from those on CNET?

A: My review style is more personal.

Q: I think all bloggers share a common plight to get more reader interaction. l saw your post when you “asked” readers to add comments.

I am begging of you to post your answer in the poll in the sidebar! Also, There are 2 comments on this whole blog. Please, comment! you can select anonymous, so you don’t have to give your name or anything! I will do my best to answer your comment/ question.
                              Email: Empty or full?
                              “Good Morning Geek,” March 5, 2009

Did it work?

A: No. 

Q: That’s going to make a lot of bloggers feel better. It’s not just them.

A: Later, I did a giveaway of a signed 4×6 print of Spewing Star to the fifth person who e-mailed me, and that got a decent response. 

Q: What blogs do you pay attention to?

A: TechCrunch and Mashable and people like Robert Scoble. 

Q: Robert Scoble follows you on Twitter, which is a compliment.

A: I’d like to interview him. 

Q: You should DM him. I bet he’d be open to talking with you (even though he won’t return my e-mails). If Scoble was 12 years old, I suspect his blog would resemble yours.

A: Thanks.

We’ll publish the second half of the interview with Mr. Swisher on Thursday.

Yesterday’s post highlighted half of my list of favorite posts from 2010.

Here’s the second half of the list. 

Looking to diversify from mailing labels, Avery Dennison creates what are essentially big-boy decals for cars.

But the story missed the most obvious visual to bring the story to life.

Like an actual car showing off the new look?

Geez, the story is not about Rudy Widjaja, Nita Riady, James Hartono, and the rest of the local execs. It’s about dressing up cars.

9) 10 Ways Communicators Must Evolve

As part of the #444PR series, this post examines what it’s going to take for tomorrow’s communicators to be effective.

The profession still resists the point, ”lose control”:

I don’t mean rush the stage at a Lady Gaga concert.

I’m talking about giving up the old-fashion quest to control the message.

In spite of all the blather about “engagement,” many practitioners still adhere to a control and command mentality.

And it’s not just about the message.

It’s time to let go in transforming employees into communicators.

If you prefer, there’s a SideShare version of the post.

10) Reuters EIC: The Conversation About the Story is as Important as the Story Itself

I still don’t understand why the blog post from David Schlesinger didn’t garner more attention.

Here you have the head of Reuters, one of the largest news organizations in the world, telling the troops that he’s charging the social media hill.

There’s poetic sensibility in his words:

Knowing the story is not enough.

Telling the story is only the beginning.

The conversation about the story is as important as the story itself.

This is a far cry from the days of Walter Cronkite telling everyone what to think Monday through Friday at 6 p.m. From Schlesinger’s perspective, the journalist takes on the dual role of reporting as well as pulling in other relevant information from others who may or may not be professionals.

11) Nancy Duarte Talk Shines Spotlight on Storytelling

Nancy was gracious enough to take the stage at the Agency.  

Through exhaustive research - speeches, screenplays, Greek tragedies, etc. - Nancy discovered all of these powerful stories follow the same framework, moving back and forth between “what is” and “what could be.”

It’s the gap between the two scenarios that creates interest and even drama.

The part of Nancy’s talk that I thought was particularly insightful involved analyzing the 2007 Steve Jobs presentation that launched the iPhone and Martin Luther King Jr.’s famous I Have a Dream speech.

Nice touch by our ace photographer Carlos Mangandy to capture Nancy in a pose similar to Martin Luther King Jr.

12) Where Did Journalist Julian Assange Get His PR Degree?

Lost in WikiLeaksMania, Julian Assange has shown the PR savvy of a seasoned pro.

With dot-connecting analysis, we shared with the world how Assange maximized publicity.

Typical PR thinking would have shotguned a news release out to the world with a pointer to the digital treasure trove of governmental pillow talk.

More is better.

That’s not how Assange maximized the communications impact.

He did just the opposite.

He created scarcity, not abundance, by offering access to only four publications: Le Monde (France), El Pais (Spain), The Guardian (the UK), and Der Spiegel (Germany).

Yes, the irony is rich.

Thanks for tuning into this forum, not just today but throughout the year.

Without further adieu, we turn our attention to 2011. 

I write a column on Silicon Valley for a tech publication in Korea called The Electronics Times.

The editor asked me to take a shot at predicting what will happen in Silicon Valley in 2011.

Here’s what got edited out of the column (apparently storytelling techniques with a touch of levity don’t resonate overseas):

The Cupcake Bubble Hits the Fan

The rubble from the dot-com bubble is still etched in our minds.

More recently, the subprime mortgage fiasco wreaked havoc in Silicon Valley and across the U.S.

Next year, we will witness the bursting of the cupcake bubble.

That’s right.

The proliferation of cupcakes simply isn’t sustainable.

With thanks to my crack research team, check out the following back-of-the-envelope chart: 

Sure, the number of target buyers has bounced back to 2007 levels, but supply has gone berserk.

Assuming 10 percent of the target buyers like cupcakes enough to pay for premium – no sure bet – they’re going to need to average roughly 1.5 cupcakes per working day to consume capacity.

Unless the cupcake makers can somehow tap into more of a mainstream audience, there’s no way affluent Silicon Valley buyers can support so many merchants in a niche space.

Spat Between HP and Oracle Escalates

It’s easy to watch the friction between HP and Oracle and call it petty.

No doubt, Larry Ellison took great delight in hiring Mark Hurd after HP gave him the boot. But this battle goes much deeper than the executive personalities.

Oracle wants to be in the hardware business. By acquiring Sun, Oracle entered one of the few hardware segments that still produces decent profit margins: storage systems.

HP wants to be in the software business. They’ve always coveted IBM profits derived from software and how software feeds another high-margin business, consulting services.

If I was Larry, I would regularly sweep the humble abode – including the koi pond – for listening devices.

TechCrunch Experiences Seller’s Remorse

If you read the TechCrunch “backstory” you’ll find one “little” item conspicuously absent … the AOL acquisition.

I’m guessing TechCrunch’s branding strategy doesn’t include touting AOL ownership.

I know AOL CEO Tim Armstrong said at the announcement, “We’ll try to be as hands-off as possible.”

But everyone always utters the “hands-off” words after consummating the deal (except BusinessWeek, which knew the iron fist of Bloomberg would soon descend).

It’s only a matter of time before the AOL mahogany-row-ites offer their “suggestions” on how to increase organic traffic.

Warren Buffet Makes Silicon Valley Investment

Mr. Buffet has shunned Silicon Valley because by his own admission he didn’t understand technology.

But after playing enough bridge games with Bill Gates and grasping the difference between ASICs and FPGAs, he’s ready to make the plunge. 

Plus, after investing in Chinese auto and battery company BYD, Silicon Valley companies seem like treasury bonds. 

Woodside High School Offers Blogging Class 

It all started with a blog called “Good Morning Geek” penned by a 12-year-old boy. 

A Woodside High parent gets wind of GMG, e-mails the link to her mahjong posse, and within 48 hours a firestorm ensues. 

How can a kid who’s not even in high school churn out cogent posts on topics ranging from the benefits of Tumblr to coding on Android while our kids think WordPress comes from a winery started by out-of-work journalists? 

That’s how Blogging 101 ends up being added to Woodside High’s English curriculum in 2011. 

If you’ve got your own predictions on Silicon Valley for 2011, jump in. 

Blogging shares a similarity with golf.

A zillion people enjoy the activity, but only a chosen few make money at it.

This point recently got hammered home when I stumbled across an ad on Craigslist recruiting bloggers for Intuit’s small-biz property.

Intuit pays 100 bucks per post.

I already knew it’s the rare blogger who can quit his or her day job.

But only 100 bucks for crafting a 300-word post?

Now, Intuit might argue an efficient blogger can crank out a post in a couple of hours. Secure enough gigs like this and theoretically you’re generating $100K in annual income based on a 40-hour work week over a calendar year (20 posts per week = $2K per week X 50 weeks, and you can still enjoy two weeks of vacation time).

If people were machines, I suppose this would be true.

This got me thinking.

Maybe the economic downturn pinched Intuit on the financial slide.

But a quick look at revenue shows FY2010 was a banner bounce-back year.

OK, maybe Inuit is still digging itself out of a cash-flow hole.

I think it’s fair to say that’s not the case.

So what can we conclude from this riveting dot-connecting analysis?

The commoditization of blogging makes newspapers look like a growth business.

Apparently, this is what the market will bear.

To Intuit’s credit, they got Tom Foremski’s memo that every company needs to be the media.

Hence, the company’s quest to build out a site around the small-biz industry. (That tag line “We’re talking about small business success” could use some work.)

While each post gets 100 bucks whether it’s average or a great, Intuit does acknowledge the importance of storytelling techniques:

We want posts to be fun and easy to read, not stuffy and dry. You must have a good ear for language, but you should also be cognizant of online publishing realities and can use key search engine keywords in your posts and headlines without sounding robotic.

Sounds like a cross between Demand Media and Stieg Larsson.

Wonder if Oprah will apply for the gig. 

Update (Dec. 16, 2010)

Gregg Morris shared with me that the pay for blog writting can fall far below the $100 per post from Intuit.

As exhibit A, check out another listing on Craigslist called Writing Articles (any). 

Here’s the punchline:

Pay is $5 for 500 words, and 3.50 for 300-350 words. 

I suspect even Dickens made more than a buck per 100 words.

Update (Dec. 18, 2010)

Christopher Null from Intuit was good enough to answer my question about response to the ad.

In short, Intuit received over 100 resumes within a few days prompting the company to take down the ad.

Again, another proof point that demand exceeded supply for Intuit’s proposition.

It was standing room only at the Agency’s “Playing Field” yesterday to hear Nancy Duarte share her wisdom on how to create a presentation that grabs the audience by the scruff of the neck.

Most communicators know Nancy from her breakthrough book, slide:ology.

She recently published book No. 2, resonate, which dives into the type of content that truly engages an audience.

Through exhaustive research - speeches, screenplays, Greek tragedies, etc. - Nancy discovered all of these powerful stories follow the same framework, moving back and forth between “what is” and “what could be.”

It’s the gap between the two scenarios that creates interest and even drama.

The thinking is similar to our storytelling techniques in which we contrast “what was” with “what is.”

The part of Nancy’s talk that I thought was particularly insightful involved analyzing the 2007 Steve Jobs presentation that launched the iPhone and Martin Luther King Jr.’s famous I Have a Dream speech.

You know how ESPN basketball announcer Hubie Brown will break down a sequence from a Lakers and Celtics game during a stoppage in play? That’s essentially what Nancy did with these two communications.

Very cool.

The same way our clients must translate complexity into an understandable narrative, Martin Luther King Jr. had to address incredibly complex societal issues.

As Nancy explained, King partly accomplished this through metaphors:

America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked “insufficient funds.”

with the payoff later into the speech:

So we have come to cash this check, a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice.

There’s a reason 47+ years later the King speech resurfaces in discussions.

One final point from the talk -

Be brave, allowing your passion to flow to the audience.

By the way, Nancy’s presentation did grab the audience by the scruff of the neck.

P.S. Yesterday also caused me to reflect on our own visual storytelling. As you know, we’ve embraced SlideShare, with our Aligning PR with Storytelling for the Happilly Ever After deck securing over 7,000 views (between the first upload and the contest version).

What you probably don’t know is Stephanie Phua, who interned in our Singapore office, designed these decks. It turns out that Second Chartered Bank is conducting a contest to find the “World’s Coolest Intern” and Ms. Phua has made the final 10. If the bank defines “coolest” as having a passion for social media, being relentlessly curious and open to feedback, then Stephanie deserves ice-cube status.