Knowledge marketing is now the work horse of this new scene. The most fundamental principle that you now must embrace is “Teach - Don’t Sell”. The World Wide Conversation is hungry to find and share knowledge - but not to be sold. Your audience has a finely tuned antenna that won’t tolerate covert sales agendas.

Sharing knowledge has never been easier - with blogs, social networks, Wikis, instant Web sites, video and more.

So how come the ‘picture tells a thousand words’ principle is abused with PowerPoint presentations so habitually?

We’ll all become knowledge marketers in one way or another. Sharing, collaborating, conversing, teaching and engaging in creative pursuits.

This video gives a taste of the future for our connected communications and knowledge sharing:

Aurora (Part 1) from Adaptive Path on Vimeo.

I’ve always been interested in what makes life easier.

Personal and career pursuits have had this life narrative evolve over the years. My first career move was industrial design, then taking up naturopathy, yoga, natural health and new age retailing. Branding and marketing connected all of these and became a new business Brandwithin. A more recent evolution of my story brings education, knowledge marketing and the puzzle of the Internet as a turbo-charged medium for connection and transformation. It’s a fun ride!

For all the fancy widgets and techniques for blogging, podcasting, linking, bookmarking and more – it comes back to basic principles to get your ideas out to others. The New Internet is about people connecting, sharing their experiences and tapping into the many ‘water cooler’ conversations around us.

This is one of a series from The Common Craft Show that is also featured on The Society For Word of Mouth. (Yes, you can join!) A previous feature of Lee Lefever’s work on this blog is here. You can learn about news blog readers and RSS.

Is there a solution in sight?

Brandwithin has been working on the Focus and Follow Through project — an online productivity coaching system designed to support you to keep your focus on your highest priorities. This intro coaching video here is a simple knowledge product made using Keynote (the Mac version of PowerPoint) with voice over. And the easy part is the one-click command: send to YouTube…

Stay tuned for future updates and the release of the product. Sanity may yet be a partner to productivity.

Full of life – and the art of coffee – in larger than life pictures, as well as an engaging slide show to inform you of their back story on the ‘real’ coffee… (espresso is never translated, how crema makes the difference to taste…)

How simple it is to tell your story with a few pictures and the story that you know so well.

The Lavazza ‘theme park’ was doing a brisk trade in coffee and related breakfast fare, at the same time as entertaining and informing customers. A great way to build customer loyalty.

There is a usually a captive moment in any business transaction - always a good time to inform, entertain, engage and build the relationship with customers. Lavazza is doing a great job here.

Knowledge marketing with fun and sex appeal!

Robert Cialdini in his excellent book Influence, The Psychology of Persuasion illuminates the principle of authority: People are more willing to follow the directions or recommendations of a communicator to whom they attribute relevant authority or expertise.

Funny thing is, as an Australian, my accent (I thought you were the one with an accent?) can do just that in the right context. And my British colleague Jon Ward draws on the ultimate heritage. He has a marvelous way of saying things that are irrefutable. And his interview with Donald Trump on Trump University’s Wealth Builder’s Blueprint is masterful. More than just his accent though, Jon is a master thinker and authority in his own right. See his Zoom Thinking seminar as a hint of what is behind the man.

More on using the authority of voice: the dulcet tones of the BBC’s Richard Dimbleby are very persuasive as he reports on the Swiss spaghetti harvest…

Now we see the timeless nature of well presented knowledge - with this video clip from The Wealth Builder’s Blueprint, Trump U’s VP of Marketing, Josef Katz has launched a new angle on their knowledge marketing - through YouTube. I doubt that video marketing will get fired any time soon!

• Overcoming self doubt - learning a new way of self expression
• Allowing self confidence to reveal the inner writer (slowly at least!)
• Learning how to craft a message to share with others (is anyone out there?)
• Finding focus… what else can I say about knowledge marketing?
• Discovering the world of social networking and how I can interact and share ideas
• The joy of being a number one search result in a Google blog search - more motivation for the power of focus
• And the list keeps growing…

There are a few blogging heroes that have inspired me on this journey.

• Seth Godin my original blog hero who showed just what it is like to have a point of view and to live it out loud
• Ken Burgin, my brother who leads the way with motivation and inspiration to play full out online with blogging, social networking and internet marketing
• Tim Ferris. His book still taunts me on my desk as I still live with too many digits beyond 4 as the number of hours per week that I work. His Uncommon Timesavers for Bloggers inspired me to write this post (see point #5).
• Jeremiah Owyang whose blog on Web Strategy and his research on social networking is leading edge, and very motivating to explore more
• MarketingProfs Daily Fix is always a great collection of branding and markeitng news and views
• And then there is various geek bloggers on iPhones, and Mac Rumors and Tech Crunching and more - all an interesting view of the horizon

There’s already a bunch more interesting posts to read. The journey goes on….

What’s in it for knowledge marketers?

For a start, a first hand experience of being part of an online community of the future. And many opportunities to position you and your brand within it. Lot’s of new widgets and bright shiny bells and whistles that can target your audience.

With focus and attention, some simple steps to explore the medium can reap rich rewards.

In the last few months on Facebook I have met old colleagues and new, joined interesting groups and discovered a huge new resource for the future of knowledge marketing. Just the beginning of a new learning curve — and a fun one too.

Add me as a friend and I will add you back.

Jeremiah Owyang has an extensive coverage of smart web strategies on his Blog. Well worth a read to see where social networking is going.

This inspiring video reveals an apparently new presentation genre - for university professors to give lectures as if it were their last! And here, one professor participant named Randy Pausch turns out to be truly only weeks or months from dying of pancreatic cancer. His final lecture is called How to Achieve Your Childhood Dreams. Inspiring stuff!

I first saw this on Brad Isaac’s blog.