I had my television début on Washington Business Report this morning on WJLA ABC7. I was invited on by Rebecca Cooper because she stumbled upon the Abraham Harrison website and liked our humor and our business.  So, here’s the video of the segment for you to check out:

Shereen from Invesp Consulting popped me an email last week to let me know that this blog, Because the Medium is the Message, was the #21 brand blog on his new blog-rating tool called BlogRank. Just now, Shereen popped me another email to let me know that my blog — this blog — is ranked the #18 PR blog as well.  I took a look and discovered that I posses the 141st-rated Social Media blog as well.  Cool!  Check it out, check them out!

We at Abraham Harrison, LLC, have built our entire company around enabling our team members to live and work from anywhere in the world; as long as they have a good internet connection and their laptop.

In fact, Abraham Harrison, LLC was formed three years ago while our CEO, Mark Harrison, was living and volunteering in a small fishing village on the southern tip of Zanzibar.  His thatch-roofed hut had no running water, but it had electricity and a 3G mobile internet connection.

Chris Abraham, who was then running AbrahamPR.com, called up Mark, who had run a successful virtual consulting firm over the turn of the millennium, and asked him if he would take over the CEO role of Chris’s rapidly growing PR company.  Mark agreed, but on the condition that the firm would be built as a virtual company that would allow all co-workers to work from wherever they happened  to be in the world.

Mark now has a proper roof and even running water in his houses in Mauritius and Berlin, but the ethos of the firm has remained the same: our company lives 100% on the internet, and our people can live anywhere.

Abraham Harrison operates smoothly around the clock, spread across 14 time zones, with all of our documents, systems, and information in the cloud, being accessed and collaborated upon by our team members via their laptops, Blackberrys, and iPhones, under the shade of a palm, in the powdery snow of the Rockies, or in the bustle of Berlin or Washington, DC.

I don’t know how Stevie Wilson does it but every time we talk she reveals a new facet in me. This time, Stevie and I talk about the big bucks of the fashion industry, the Golden Globes, the nature of style and the fit of jeans, and a whole sundry of topics that bring out the more feminine side of me, Chris Abraham.  Please visit LA-Story and Stevie Wilson and then listen to our latest Podcast together, Chris Abraham Returns!! Part 2 of a Conversation about the Value of Fluff & Red Carpet Events

I am not willing or able to say that the following 91 blog posts about social media, blogging, new media, social networking, etc, are the definite top-91 posts because I didn’t have the time or attention to go through all of my 5,437 blog posts:

1. Social Media Reputation Management
2. The Social Mediasphere is Truly Global
3. Real PR Takes Real Relationships, Really
4. Imagine Meeting Someone in a Bar
5. What Motivated You to Learn About Social Media?
6. Strong Community Demands Strong Leadership
7. Three Mistakes PR Folks Make Pitching Bloggers
8. What in the Heck are Twitter Hashtags?
9. Do Social Media Solutions Stagnate After Acquisition?
10. What is the Difference Between Marketing and PR Online?
11. Should Your Business Tap Social Networks?
12. Comprehensive Online Conversation Marketing Campaigns
13. Marketing in the New Millenium is PR
14. Blogger Outreach is PR and Not Marketing
15. Only Public Diplomacy Can Heal the U.S. Brand Perception Crisis Abroad
16. PR Needs Geeks
17. Corporations Do Social Media Wrong
18. Online Field Marketing
19. Web 2.0 Mirrors America as She Actually Appears
20. Live Commercials are the New Black for Television
21. Online Outreach and Online Engagement Primer
22. Do PR Execs and Lawyers Have the Same Bad Rep?
23. The Gap Between the Geeks and the Wonks Needs to be Mended
24. Old PR Needs to Learn to Love Not Loathe the People
25. What is a Vertical Blog?
26. Online Communities are Real Communities of Real People
27. Caveat Emptor et Lector
28. Long Tail PR Requires New Media Marketing and Online Outreach
29. Control the Language and you Control the Mind
30. PR A-List Bloggers are Alexa Amateurs
31. Online Communities are Not Virtual
32. Bloggers Can Ignore Basic Journalism Ethics
33. What I Would Have Done if I Were Edelman Me2Revolution
34. The New York Times Code of Ethics is Mandatory for Journalists Not Bloggers
35. In Defense of Edelman over Bribery Charges
36. Online Publicity
37. RSS Feed and Syndication Strategy
38. People Talk Online Like They Do Over Coffee or Across the Cubicle
39. Hill Holliday is an Expert at Textual Healing Flash for SEO
40. Repost: Blogs the Main Stream Media Read Redux
41. Online Reputation Management
42. Ping Servers and Wire Services Converge
43. Prospect Bloggers Before Blogger Outreach
44. New Press Releases Need Not Be New Media
45. How Many Influencers, Influencials, and Opinion Leaders are There?
46. Effective PR Blogging
47. Search Engine Optimization Works like a Champ
48. Magical Misdirection in Public Affairs and Politics
49. We Bloggers are Kingmakers
50. Authentic is as Authentic Does in the Blogosphere
51. Your Key Online Influencers are a One In A Million
52. MSM is Losing Control of the Press via Blogging, the Next Gutenberg Revolution
53. The Gender Divide in the Blogosphere is Actually a Literacy Divide
54. How Can Main Stream Media and Bloggers/Citizen Journalists Collaborate to Produce Better News/Information?
55. Is There a Widening Gap Between Mainstream Media and Bloggers/Citizen Journalists?
56. What is the Diff Between Advertising, Media Relations, PR, Marketing, Selling, Branding, and SPAM
57. The Definition of Medium as in “Because the Medium is the Message”
58. Why I Blog What I Blog on this Particular Blog
59. Brand Protection on Blogs
60. Articles About Blogging for Business, Professional Blogging, Corporate Blogging and PR Blogging
61. A Sample of the Best Blog, Blogging, and Internet Articles
62. Online Advertising’s Tipping Point Approaches
63. PR Blogging for Brand Promotion
64. The Interconnectedness of the Blogosphere and Mediasphere
65. Top Ten Rules for New Media Branding
66. An Argument for Online Market Intelligence
67. Virtual Communities v Blogosphere
68. Caveat Emptor et Lector
69. Always Remember the 95 Theses of the Cluetrain Manifesto
70. Effective PR Blogging
71. Control Your Google Listing
72. Quick Blog Search Engine Optimization Tips You Can Control
73. Don’t Worry You Didn’t Miss the Height of the Blogosphere
74. The Blogosphere Exists and it Can Include MSM
75. Comprehensive Online Conversation Marketing Campaigns
76. Three Mistakes PR Folks Make Pitching Bloggers
77. Earned Media for SEO and Profit
78. Using Twitter for Branding and Engagement
79. Social Media Reputation Management
80. The Powerful SEO Benefits of Blogger PR Outreach
81. Always Remember the 95 Theses of the Cluetrain Manifesto
82. Should Your Business Tap Social Networks?
83. Blogger Outreach is PR and Not Marketing
84. Live Commercials are the New Black for Television
85. All About Word-of-Mouth Marketing AKA Buzz Marketing
86. Journalism Gods Agree with Me on The Bribe
87. Marketing Online
88. What to Do When Your Decide Your Company Should Blog
89. Fake it ‘Til You Make It Repost
90. Purina ONE is Role Model for Word-Of-Mouth Marketing
91. What Networking is Versus What Networking Should Be

Here’s actual evidence that I do have a life and that I don’t work all the time and that I do have friends and a life in Real Life and that I do go out and don’t work all the time and that I do have a face and a smile.  It also reveals that I am stiff and awkward before the camera and am not used to being the subject of the camera at all. Elisabeth seems to me a little more comfortable with herself — and much more rock star!

Elisabeth, John and Chris at The Bird in Berlin

After a nice dinner of * Paneer at a local Prinzlauer Berg Indian joint, Elisabeth, John, and I took it to The Bird in Berlin where we proceeded to do Many Silly Things and Generally Have Fun. Notice, I am not very animated in person.

CC Chapman blogged about the Life Changing Box, my mysterious client’s client, and I love being able to tease CC about it! And, like I always say, loose lips sink ships! (I know something you don’t know! Ha ha!)

Life Changing Box

June 17th 2008

I got a note from a friend pointing me to LifeChangingBox.com . No details. No hints. Just the URL to go and check it out. Since I knew this person I figured why not.

I spent some time putting words into it and seeing what it did. I don’t want to spoil the surprise but go ahead and give it a try. When you give it a word that the box likes it reacts positively to it. I’m still haven’t figured out if there are any key words that will make it go really nuts or not and what the end goal of the site is, but it is a fun for a nice break. One warning though is that the site loads with sounds so don’t have your speakers to loud. You can turn it off in the upper right hand corner.

What I have determined is that it is tied to a Facebook application as well where you can win prizes by holding the box. I had the box for a while, but didn’t win anything. As you can see below, you can go in every day and “touch” boxes that other people are holding in the hopes that when the box changes holders you’ll get it next. Sort of like an inverted, twisted game of duck duck goose if you ask me.

Word on the street is that this is tied to a television company, but I’m not getting any real answers from anyone I ask so I’m not sure. I did see a TV in one of the promo shots as a prize so who knows.

If you try it out and find anything cool that makes the box do things let me know. If you win a prize I REALLY want to know because I am curious to see what sorts of things it gives out.

Not sure this is “life changing” but it is certainly fun to play with.

Well, CC, you’re just gonna have to wait for it! Won’t be long now!

Well, in the blogger-to-blogger dialog between Norman Birnbach and me, starting with How Do You Establish Metrics for a Blogging Initiative? Take a page from the campaign for Jerry White’s book then moving onto Guy Kawasaki on the impact of bloggers on PR and buzz, then Gifting Bloggers Doesn’t Mean Pushing Swag, Stevie Wilson on The Swag Culture of LA, finally onto To Swag or Not To Swag — Actually Chris Abraham Clarifies the Notion of Swag:

To Swag or Not To Swag — Actually Chris Abraham Clarifies the Notion of Swag

In response to my blog entry, Guy Kawasaki on the impact of bloggers on PR and buzz, Chris Abraham has provided additional perspective about swag in his post, “Gifting Bloggers Doesn’t Mean Pushing Swag.”

Check it out, but here’s some of what he said:

• “Gifts don’t have to be free stuff — like books or iPods — gifts can be in the form of knowledge, intellectual property, insider access, or blogger exclusives; gifts can be informational, gifts can solve a community problem, or customer service issues.
• “What a gift needs to be is super-valuable to the recipient — the value of a gift is based on perception. You need to be willing to give the gift that the blogger wants and not the gift you are prepared or want to give.
• “What is not cool is half measures or crappy, throw-away gifts, the Internet version of key rings and a bowl of candy. Offering throttled, limited or restricted demos (without access to the full version when it is released); offering a single book chapter (without the whole book being an option); or granting “exclusive” access to something that is already released is just plain lame and will result in severe negative consequences.”
• “It is pretty bad to not give a gift when you reach out to bloggers just because you feel entitled or represent a fancy client but it is worse to be stingy about the gift you do give. Make sure the gift is generous — give until it hurts.”

This is very useful. I’m sorry if I misrepresented what Chris was telling me about swag.

Thanks, Norman, I appreciate the follow-up post that better explains my methodology and the implemented strategy and best practices of Abraham Harrison.

My blog is so expansive and so old now, with 4,627 articles, that I get jacked left and right my autoblog and roblogs. I don’t really care or really mind; however, sometimes, there is gold to be mined. This wee little interpretation, done my an algorithm, encapsulates my entire life as a blogger:

I, Chris Abraham, Watch American Idol; Democrats Can’t Define Themselves or Their Agenda; Are You Excited about Any of the American Idol Top 12? Coca-Cola Blak the New Black? I Want Taylor Hicks to Win American Idol; Chris Daughtry is …

Via Idol News autobot