Conversation Agent Valeria Maltoni Connects Ideas and People
This second feature in my Recommended Reading Guest Series (see below) with connector and conversationalist par excellence Valeria Maltoni is something of a coincidence. Her blog Conversation Agent has been in my feed reader for some time and although I thoroughly enjoyed reading her writing that is as far as it went. Until she wrote about branding at The Blog Herald. Somehow we managed to connect in the comments despite the conversation getting off to a poor start with my less than positive comment, to put it diplomatically. The reason is Valeria, who I am sure would have a made a great diplomat and in some sense is one. Somehow she was still able to pick the conversation up and make the most of what commenting allows out of it before we continued it by email. Talk about opportunity knocking. Of course I jumped at the chance of featuring her here as a tribute to her contribution and her writing.
Even if you have never visited her blog or read one of her articles elsewhere (she also blogs at Fast Company) you could you have had the pleasure of connecting with her as she is also a avid commentator on other blogs. Unfortunately this is something which many bloggers forget as being part of the blogging experience. Not Valeria, who seems to thrive on making connections and starting or adding to conversations. On Conversation Agent she writes about various subjects, but always passionately and with conversation in mind. By connecting with Valeria or her blog and engaging in the conversation some of the basic ideas that you will walk away with are: owning your brand, whether that be personal or business, is important; making an impact on communities and businesses starts with cultivating our own curiosity and skill; and talking about business and bridging two and more cultures can be done from the heart.
Valeria’s Top Five Own Articles
1. Conversation As Connection : “One of my best early posts. This explains what conversation means in the way I use this word.”
2. Getting your Message Through : “We often worry about the message itself and give little consideration to the web of relationships we need to navigate so our intended audiences receive it.”
3. The Sound of Silence : “In thinking about communication, we often forget that so much is said in the pauses.”
4. Media as Connectors of Ideas and People : “This seems to be the million dollar question — what about the role of media in today’s conversations?”
5. The Narrative Fallacy : “Stories form the foundation of communications — from the myths to modern messages. Learn how our preference for narrative may mislead us.”
Valeria’s Top Five Best Reads
1. Why Blogging Matters (David Armano) : “You will find a lot of ideas here from difference perspectives with an aggregated list of blogs to explore.”
2. What’s Your Mantra? (Roger von Oech) : “If you had to distill down one thing that makes you unique, what would that be?”
3. Thin-Slice Your Brand (Mike Wagner) : “What are the patterns that people detect the first time they visit/come into contact with your business?”
4. Twitter for Marketers (Matt Dickman) : “Matt is a rising star of the blogosphere. His technology product reviews are getting a lot of attention, and for good reason.”
5. Genesis (Gavin Heaton) : “Gavin also writes for MarketingProfs:Daily Fix. His vision of storytelling and branding is spot on in many ways and in this case, poetic.”
An essential part of Circular Communication is to reach out, establish connections and build bridges. I have already posted a number of extensive link posts on specific topics that have been very well received. In an attempt to expand the communication even more I decided to make a link post guest series where bloggers I read and appreciate list and comment on what they consider to be their five best articles together with their five favorite reads from other blogs. You can thus see it as an interview in link form celebrating what those participating like and would like to share. Since it is all about paying tribute will all contributions be filed under Tributes. Because of the nature of this blog is it a requirement that the recommended articles are about communication in some way, shape or form.
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3 Responses to “Conversation Agent Valeria Maltoni Connects Ideas and People”
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Thank you, Jan. You are extremely good and fun to work with. I know that your readers will benefit from the breadth of perspectives I have selected in the 5 best reads from other authors.
Very good collaboration Jan.
@ Dan - Thanks…
Valeria is a an absolute delight to converse with so it can hardly be referred to as work.
I certainly enjoyed the reads and added a couple of new blogs to my newsreader in the process.
Thanks again!