Lots of great people hanging (read: drinking) and learning from each other up at Portland’s Internet Strategy Forum Summit in July. I watch from Cali as pals like Josh Bancroft helped organize folks for dinner. And folks like Intel Blogfather Bryan Rhoads was their “tapping pools of knowledge capital.” He is a great guy to learn from — big heart, good experience and great stories. Nice to hear him hook up with our PodTech pals Jeremiah and Scoble. I’ve learned so much from these guys, yet sometimes it feels like it’s just the beginning.
Bryan is Intel’s first Blogfather — they’ll be sequels — who led the first successful Intel blog pilot IT@Intel that later paved the way for a family of Intel blogs like Technology@Intel, Research@Intel and a handful of others. He has coined some of my favorite phrases like “there were pioneers, but now the settlers” are diving into social media. One of my favorites was: “One of my roles is to get out of the way” and let the bloggers do their thing. But one to live by: consensus building helps you get management to “get your back” so you can run and try things.
Watch for much more wisdom and greatness from the Blogfather staring in a new role inside Intel.
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Movin' Ahead 
If he’s Intel’s blogfather, I wonder what that makes me? 😉
You’re Intel’s Pioneer, the social media Christopher Columbus meets Louis-&-Clark. You’re the first expleror who dares to try, makes sense of new things then turns around with eyes wide open and arm waving: Come-on!
You and others have worked passionately for years and got us to where we are. Keep pointing the way for how we can move ahead.
The Intel Blogfather had to make deals and offers that management couldn’t refuse, using smiles, smarts and a gun filled with bullets that were actually real examples from what you and others were doing. We’ll have a Blogfather 2 for the next wave, and you will be two or more generations ahead showing everyone we’re on the wrong or right path.
Josh Bancroft is the Marco Polo of Intel blogs to keep w/ this Italian theme 🙂 You are the “organic” blogger that proved that there are other empires and worlds to discover… you charted those early maps for guys like me to follow and try to institutionlize this culturally at Intel… build that capability that makes it “safe” for us to enter Web 2.0… and to do it credibly w/ an authentic voice.
Three cheers for Josh… and let’s not forget Ken… Ken’s bringing the “show me” element to technology that will demystify our geekdom. In this over-saturated world, showing why technology and why the processor matters is key to reaching and communicating w/ wider audiences.
Group hug.