The Thoughts From series of interviews are simple: I ask someone ten questions and they respond. It works very well and I hope that you’ll learn some new things from the people featured in these interviews.

Julien Smith is an author, consultant, and speaker who has been involved in online communities for over 15 years– from early BBSes and flashmobs to the social web as we know it today.  He writes at inoveryourhead.net.  He is also the co-author of the book Trust Agents with Chris Brogan.

Can you give us an example of one of the biggest surprises that you encountered when co-writing Trust Agents with Chris Brogan?

I discovered that the process of writing things down really helped me develop my own thoughts about something. I was really verbal at first– that’s why I thought podcasting was “for me” where as blogging was not. But it works for writing too.

So I read a book every week as you mention below. At the time it was usually related to the subjects of Trust Agents, so I spit out my own thoughts everyday on the subject after reading, and then turned that into the half I wrote.
Basically I created a process whereby I’m always having new thoughts on a subject through a consistent exposure to new ideas. I’m pretty sure that’s important to anyone on the web today that’s trying to build a presence.

You’ve mentioned previously that you have a goal of reading a book a week. If you could fit in more than one book a week, would you? In other words, is there enough interesting stuff out there in print (or in eBook versions of printed books) to warrant reading more than one book per week?

I do fit in more than a book a week, really. I read sections of other books to keep me interested. So in the past week I started Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations, finished Pam Slim’s Escape From Cubicle Nation, and started The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work by Alain de Botton.

Marshall McLuhan said that the advent of the printing press made any human that wanted to the equivalent of any genius in history (that has written a book), so the value is obvious. And there’s of course tons of stuff to read and learn from all the time, so I doubt I’ll ever run out. I’ll read a few bad books along the way, of course, but I’m ok with that.

Given the dominance of Amazon.com and its country divisions (aka Amazon.ca), what can the online versions of Borders, Barnes & Noble, and Indigo/Chapters offer as a distinguishing, yet significant advantage in their online presence to make us choose them over Amazon.xxx?

Jesus, what a question. Amazon offers everything but immediacy, and even then you can get that in America if you are willing to go Prime. So basically retailers trim the fat from those whose nostalgia or impatience makes them hold onto the old way of doing things, which I’m not in favour of really.

There is something to be said for the experience I guess. But the experience is not worth paying 30% more for a book, even with immediacy added in, so I would say they’re screwed.

How would you describe the perfect blog post? What are its characteristics?

Connection to the audience… a strong editorial viewpoint that is different from what the blogosphere is regurgitating right now… a call to action at the end… good timing… a way to excite readers at the beginning… and an easy sound-bite way to understand it so that people can spread it via social tools. Sorry, I’m just thinking this out as I write it.

Some people say that you can’t make a piece of content go viral: the best you can do is spread combustible materials around, light lots of matches, and just hope that the whole thing will catch fire. Do you agree with this position? Why or why not?

I agree you cannot MAKE it go viral, but anyone that says that just isn’t very good at designing content, sorry. Don’t believe me? Look at TheOatmeal.com — I know it’s designed to go viral and I still can’t help myself from upvoting it on Reddit.

Is it feasible (not possible, feasible) to have a strong online presence without a strong offline presence?

Of course it’s feasible. Not all brands are personal brands– and when something has a strong enough online presence, through either a ton of frictionless spreading or lots of advertising or something, it doesn’t need an offline presence at all.

The reason offline is important is because it can provide leverage to get you past competition– being there in person is a Dip (a la Godin) that can get you past your competitors. That’s important for mindshare in a personal brand, but not so much for the other kinds– websites, companies, etc.

In your opinion, how important is it to be bilingual (French and English) as a Canadian citizen?

Not very important actually, but it is enriching. It also offsets senility to know more than 1 language so, you know.

Guitar, bass, drums, keyboards, vocals – which one would you play and why?

I’d have to say I’m a vocals guy. That’s so sad because they’re always the attention whores and the ones who end up on drugs, but what the hell.

Pretend that the Internet is completely destroyed overnight. What do you do when you wake up the next day?

I open a barbershop. People will always need to have places to gather where they feel comfortable, talk plainly, and get taken care of.

Any final thoughts for our readers?

Go big or go home.

Other posts that you might enjoy reading:

• Book Review – Chris Brogan and Julien Smith – Trust Agents
• How to start 2010 by doing better work
• The best bloggers are world builders
• Someone interviewed me for a change and some disclosure
• The role of the Twitter follower