Video Panel: social media and the tech entrepreneur

Back in May when I spoke at Sun's Startup Camp (in San Francisco), I was approached by Carsten Rubsaamen and Ralf Schmelter who asked me if I would participate in a video interview as part of their "Venture Road Trip" Project.

You see, Carsten and Ralf are post-graduate students from Germany who, as part of their studies, traveled through the U.S. for 90 days in order to study similarities and differences between American and European startup success stories. They stopped in the Bay Area, Austin, Boston, Chicago, Las Vegas and ended in NYC.

They interviewed a score of high-impact serial entrepreneurs and investors on their personal stories and experiences in building up companies--from small early-stage technology startups to paradigm-shifting companies like Amazon, Google, and Yahoo. When they asked if I would be interviewed I agreed...but I told them that instead of interviewing just me, I thought it would be far more interesting for them to interview several specialists who could discuss social media.

So we turned it into a video panel by tapping three of my NYC colleagues--David Berkowitz, Paul Soldera and Alan Wolk.

Being that we're covering a lot of ground when discussing social media, you can imagine that an hour just flew by. But that's a lot to consume in one viewing. So Carsten and Ralf split the panel discussion into nine video segments separated by nine questions (some of the segments are almost 4 minutes, some are 9). I've featured two segments below--but the entire series is right here.

There are plenty of good takeaways in the videos, but the big one that I'd like to leave you with is this: Next time someone asks you for an interview, think of your audience, and how it might just be a lot better to include a bunch of perspectives, not just your own.

After all, isn't a world of perspectives the true value of social media?

(yup, that's a rhetorical question)

This segment (running at 3:44 minutes) focuses on the question "How has marketing changed with the 'new guard' of social media?"

And this segment (running at 3:17 minutes) focuses on the question "With so many social media tools available to entrepreneurs and startups, how to decide which tool is best for your company?"