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Ford CEO Interview @ Ultimate Blogger Dinner

Ford stock holders should be really delighted. They have perhaps one of the best CEOs around - not only is he sharp, insightful and a hard worker, he is also a really great guy who has Ford Blue running through his veins. Working with our friend Scott Monty, who provided us with a Ford Flex to bring us from SFO to Las Vegas, we arranged for Ford’s CEO Alan Mulally to drop in to mix and mingle with the bloggers for a bit. We talked about a range of topics before going on air, as well as discussing peer to peer learning and how we can leverage the unconference model to help get our economy back on track by educating and retraining the recently unemployed.

I think you will like the interview, I sure did. I started off by asking him why Ford is the only major automaker in the US not yet taking any of the bailout money. The answer - they saw this coming a long time ago, got loans, retooled and got ahead of the curve. We then talked about how much Kristie Wells and I loved the Ford Flex - we really did and we would actually buy it - I even joked with him off air about how happy I was that I didnt have to meet him and tell him the car sucked and that we had a bad experience as I did with Sears prior to Christmas.  Finally, we spent some time talking about the impact that Social Media is having on their business, not only for marketing, but for innovation both internally and with customers.

Check it out and let me know what you think.

Video clips at Ustream

A word (or two) of thanks to our sponsors!

With just a couple hours to go before we officially launch The Ultimate Blogger Dinner here in Las Vegas, I would like to take this moment to extend a heartfelt ‘thank you’ to the fine folks at Lenovo for making this event possible. Because of their support, there will be great food. There is an open bar. And there will be a super solid WiFi to help you upload your photos/videos of the day, write a blog post (or eight). Of course, you can always choose to keep your laptop bag closed and simple chill with some good people here.

Lenovo recently launched their Discover Social Media portal which is helping more everyday folks discover and learn how to make the most of Social Media. This hits at the core of Social Media Club’s mission, and we will be working with Lenovo over the coming months to help fill this great web site out with more informative content to further our media literacy mission.

We also wish to extend a ‘thank you’ to MarketWire for their sponsorship of the dinner and to both MyGlobalTalk and Mom Central Consulting for joining us as participating sponsors.

Last but not least, a big thanks goes out to our friend Scott Monty from Ford for sponsoring the SMC CES Road Trip by providing us with a Ford Flex we drove down from San Francisco to Las Vegas yesterday. I love that vehicle so much I have yet to allow Chris (Heuer) behind the wheel.

So if you meet folks from one of the above sponsors here at UBD, please take a moment to say thank you. Oh, and have a good time. Muy importante.

Chris Heuer on Social Media Principles

Earlier today, I spoke at Jeff Pulver’s Social Media Jungle event here at CES 2009. I think the conversation went pretty well, we dove into the core and unearthed some important insights. The video is mediocre because we used the set it and forget it model mostly, but hey, I suppose you will only be listening to it anyway…

Keynote presentation below video.

First Glimpse of New Star Trek Props @ UBD

It turns out that Lenovo is working with Intel (a former client) and Paramount Pictures on a New Frontiers promotion around the newest Star Trek movie that is coming out.

So outside the Aquaknox restaurant, we just took some of the first photos of the new Bones’ tricorder, Kirk’s Communicator and Uhura’s communicator unit (ear piece). They are also showing a great trailor to promote the new movie (personally I cant wait to see it). These may be some of the first shots published so far.

You can see a few more photos of them over on my flickr set…. BTW, the tag for the UBD is UBDCES - if you shoot any photos or media, please tag it appropriately so that we can aggregate it on the blog and get you some traffic too.

Tune into CES Daily Recap Show from Ultimate Blogger Dinner 9pm

Tonight, Wednesday January 7, 2009, tomorrow and Friday January 9 we will be streaming live from the Ultimate Blogger Dinner reflecting on all the announcements, cool new gadgets, funny stories and the great memories from each day of CES 2009. Tune in right here to hear from some of the world’s leading gadget and tech bloggers about their insights and opinions. Share a few laughs, have a few drinks with us and hopefully learn a thing or two…

Live video chat by Ustream

With much gratitude and appreciation to Lenovo for making this possible and to our participating sponsors, MarketWire, Mom Central Consulting and MyGlobalTalk

UBD SMC ROAD TRIP TO CES 2009 - POST 1

It has been so hard to get connectivity on this road trip to Las Vegas for CES 2009, it is harder to produce media then I had thought it would be. Utterli is our only real chance to get close to real time out here on the open road of I-5, but our 1st podcast attempt with Utterli either failed, or our content was too funny for the servers and they did a spit take with our 5 minutes from the road

Regardless, we are actually enjoying the trip so far, other then the mistake of skipping In’N Out in favor of some local culture in Kettleman City…. This Ford Flex is a great vehicle - looks like an SUV, rides more like a big car - quiet inside, wired (more on that later) and really comfortable too. There are some really smart features (like allowing a channel for your wires to plug in the center storage in the front seats while keeping the device accessible outside. So I have connected my iPhone to the USB port and we are playing that music through the SYNC command center. Can’t access my playlists, but if this were my car, I would dl stuff to the Flex’s hard drive/jukebox… The jury is still out on SYNC - its pretty rudimentary in some ways, and quite cool in others. After reading the telematics article in Wired about a decade ago, I thought we would be further along then we are now, but its better then where we were then…

We just stopped for lunch hoping there was wifi so we could at least get some of our videos online - no such luck The food was just terrible…

Mike’s Roadhouse Grill: Must Avoid

Wow, well besides almost dying by choking on some gristle, this food tasted absolutely terrible. Thankfully it was only $22, but I am happy to pay it and get out with my life.

Up Next:

What should we do? We are just about to get off of I-5 and head onto 58 - is there anything over there we should stop for? We already stopped earlier at Andersen’s to try their world famous split pea soup (at least that was good) and even Mike’s Roadhouse, despite the bad food, had a great truck stop ambience to it. From a time perspective, I prefer flying, but the experience of a road trip is hard to match.

Am really looking forward to seeing everyone tonight and the rest of the week at dinner. Now I need to get back to the video. more later…

[note: due to connectivity problems, even this post was over 5 hrs delayed, so ignore the questions ]

Ultimate Blogger Dinner Launches at CES09

Chris (Heuer) and I are always up for new adventures, and have our next one coming up when we leave for Vegas this morning to attend CES. To add to the excitement…we will be driving down from San Francisco in a cinnamon colored 2009 Ford Flex thanks to to our friend and Social Media Strategist at Ford Motor Co - Scott Monty. The car was delivered yesterday and I cannot wait to get behind the wheel and test that baby out.

While in Vegas, Chris will be speaking at Jeff Pulver’s Social Media Jungle on Wednesday from 11:40-noon and we (Social Media Club) with our friends from Lenovo, will be hosting The Ultimate Blogger Dinner [UBD] with participating sponsorship from MyGlobalTalk and Mom Central Consulting.

Chris and I left enough time open for adhoc meetings, tweetups and mixers so if you are interested in connecting with either one (or both) of us, you can shoot an email to kristie [at] socialmediaclub [dot] org - or - if you are on Twitter, send a tweet to @chrisheuer or @kristiewells.

Request an Invite

Unfortunately there is not enough room for all the bloggers at CES this year, so we can’t make this a fully open event for everyone.  If you are interested in joining us on one of the nights, please complete this form.  Please note, you must have a blog that addresses technology or consumer electronics.