Shel Israel

Entrepreneur, one of the biggest Experts on Web 2.0

SHEL ISRAEL keynote speaker
English
Digital and Social Media · Futurist and Technology · Innovation and Creativity

Shel Israel helps businesses tell their stories in engaging ways. He does it as an author, a freelance journalist, and occasional company advisor.

Shel Israel writes and consults on social media issues. He is co-author, with Robert Scoble, of Naked Conversations; how blogs are changing the way businesses talk with customers. His Global Neighbourhoods blog is among the 100 most popular business & marketing blogs worldwide and the bestselling book on business blogging.

Shel Israel writes and speaks on the issues of technology and culture. All his writing is focused on how disruptive technologies impact business and life.

Shel Israel, has been part of the Silicon Valley community since 1979. A self-described, “recovering publicist,” he has consulted over 100 start-ups, during his 20 years as a PR professional, which he sold to employees in 2001. During this period, he has advised such disruptive startups as Sun Microsystems, Creative Labs and the developers for PowerPoint, FileMaker, MapInfo, Virtual Vineyards, Napster, Riya, Scrapblog and more than 100 others.  Still working primarily with startups, he has also advised larger companies including CNET, Wells Fargo Bank and Hitachi Data Systems on issues related to the social media.

Since July 2007, Shel Israel has been conducting the SAP Global Survey on Culture and Social Media.  He has interviewed people on five continents on the evolution of social media and its impact on their respective cultures and businesses.  Shel Israel has posted over 50,000 words on the subject on his blog and is currently working on an eBook reporting his findings on behalf of SAP.

He has contributed editorially to many publications and sites including Forbes, Business Week, Fast Company and Dow Jones Business.

Shel Ariel is co-author with Robert Scoble of Age of Context: Mobile, Sensors, Data & the Future of Privacyand is currently collaborating with Porter Gale on a sequel, with the working title of Pinpoint Marketing. Previously, he also wrote Naked Conversations, a seminal book on why business should use social media. On his own he wrote Twitterville, and Stellar Presentations. He currently writes The Contextual Beat column at Forbes and provides by lined editorial content to many companies of all sizes.

Shel Ariel is also a Senior Fellow to the Society for New Communications Research and is a Senior Advisor to the Social Media Club. He serves on the Board of Directors to YourTrumanShow.com, a video blogging and sharing platform.

A frequent keynote speaker, Shel Israel has addressed audiences on three continents and is regularly interviewed by the media on social media issues. He is author of “On the Edge” a monthly byline column Blogger & Podcaster magazine

Books

NAKED CONVERSATIONS

According to experts Robert Scoble and Shel Israel, blogs offer businesses something that has long been lacking in their communication with customers -- meaningful dialogue. Devoid of corporate-speak and empty promises, business blogs can humanize communication, bringing companies and their constituencies together in a way that improves both image and bottom line.

The authors use more than 50 case histories to explain why blogging is an efficient and credible method of business communication. You'll find yourself excited about the possibilities blogs present after reading just a few pages.Discover how:

Prominent business leaders, including Mark Cuban of the Dallas Mavericks, Bob Lutz from General Motors, and Jonathan Schwartz of Sun Microsystems, are beginning to use blogs to connect with their customers in new ways.
Blogging has changed the rules of communication and competition.
You can launch an effective blogging strategy and the reasons why you should.
Featuring a foreword by Tom Peters, this is a resource you and your business can't do without.

NAKED CONVERSATIONS

AGE OF CONTEXT

In 2006, co-authors Robert Scoble and Shel Israel wrote Naked Conversations, a book that persuaded businesses to embrace what we now call social media. Six years later they have teamed up again to report that social media is but one of five converging forces that promise to change virtually every aspect of our lives. You know these other forces already: mobile, data, sensors and location-based technology. Combined with social media they form a new generation of personalized technology that knows us better than our closest friends. Armed with that knowledge our personal devices can anticipate what we'll need next and serve us better than a butler or an executive assistant. The resulting convergent superforce is so powerful that it is ushering in a era the authors call the Age of Context. In this new era, our devices know when to wake us up early because it snowed last night; they contact the people we are supposed to meet with to warn them we're running late. They even find content worth watching on television. They also promise to cure cancer and make it harder for terrorists to do their damage. Astoundingly, in the coming age you may only receive ads you want to see. Scoble and Israel have spent more than a year researching this book. They report what they have learned from interviewing more than a hundred pioneers of the new technology and by examining hundreds of contextual products. What does it all mean? How will it change society in the future? The authors are unabashed tech enthusiasts, but as they write, an elephant sits in the living room of our book and it is called privacy. We are entering a time when our technology serves us best because it watches us; collecting data on what we do, who we speak with, what we look at. There is no doubt about it: Big Data is watching you. The time to lament the loss of privacy is over. The authors argue that the time is right to demand options that enable people to reclaim some portions of that privacy.

AGE OF CONTEXT

TWITTERVILLE

Twitter is the most rapidly adopted communication tool in history, going from zero to ten million users in just over two years. On Twitter, word can spread faster than wildfire. Companies no longer have the option of ignoring the conversation.

Unlike other hot social media spaces, Twitterville is dominated by professionals, not students. And despite its size, it still feels like a small town. Twitter allows people to interact much the way they do face-to-face, honestly and authentically. One minute, you’re com- plaining about the weather with local friends, the next, you’re talking shop with a colleague based halfway across the globe.

No matter where you’re from or what you do for a living, you will find conversations on Twitter that are valuable. Despite the millions of people joining the site, you’ll quickly find the ones who can make a difference to you.

Social media writer Shel Israel shares revealing stories of Twitterville residents, from CEOs to the student who became the first to report the devastation of the Szechuan earthquake; from visionaries trying to raise money for a cause to citizen journalists who outshine traditional media companies.

TWITTERVILLE

Stellar Presentations: An Entrepreneur's Guide to Giving Great Talks

Tech StartUps are built on dreams, teams and technology. But to turn vision into reality you really need to be skilled at presenting to investors, the media and increasingly at conferences. Stellar Presentations explains the strategy of the public presentation. More than that it is filled with handy tips at how to be memorable and persuasive when talking from the front of the room.

Author Shel Israel [Naked Conversations, Twitterville] is an accomplished speaker who has been coaching startup executives on how to present at conferences such as TechCrunch Disrupt, LAUNCH and DEMO for many years. He has also been a conference reviewer, reporting on hundreds of presentations.

Above all, he is a story-teller. Israel has filled this short book with anecdotes of successes and mistakes made in recent years by companies he has known. He is also funny, making this short book a most enjoyable read.

Stellar Presentations: An Entrepreneur's Guide to Giving Great Talks

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