How to Get Involved Without Micromanaging People

One of the more vexing problems most managers face every day is how to get involved in the work of their people without doing the work themselves or micromanaging those doing it.

You can resolve this challenge with the same approach that we described in our previous blog — the technique we call Prep-Do-Review. In this simple but often forgotten action model, you think of every activity not as one step — doing — but three distinct steps: prepare to act, act, and then reflect on the outcome and what can be learned from it.

Last time, we focused on how you can convert everyday activities into tools for making managerial progress — moving toward goals, developing people, building a team, creating and sustaining a network, and all the other things managers are supposed to do but never seem to have the time to do.

Here we focus on using Prep-Do-Review with your people. Start by expecting your people to use Prep-Do-Review themselves in their work. Not only will it make them more effective, but it will provide a way for you to become involved in their work as appropriate for the person and the situation.

This is the way it works:

Prep: Start by previewing people's plans with them and suggesting changes, if necessary. You do this by asking crucial questions. What are you going to do? Why — for what purpose? How will you do it? How can you use this to make progress on our goals and plans? Who should be involved or kept informed? How can this be used to help you learn and get better? What if your assumptions are wrong or the unexpected happens? This is how you move your group's purpose, plans, and work forward, how you coach and develop others, how you delegate more confidently, how you assure yourself that someone is well prepared and ready to act on her own.

Do: Based on what you learned in the Prep stage, you can decide whether and how to be involved in the doing of the activity. Working with a novice, you may want to perform the activity yourself while the person observes. Next, you may want to monitor periodically as the person does the activity and then give them feedback afterward. Thereafter, you probably don't need to be present at all — the Prep and Review stages are where you'll be involved.

Review: Great managers make post-action review a regular practice for themselves and their people. You can make it the focus of a one-on-one after an activity has been completed. Or it can be part of periodic meetings with each of your people or a standard procedure you go through in the updates your people provide at staff meetings. Be sure to model what you expect when you describe something you did — Here's what we learned. Next time we'll do it this way.

Remember to do a review regardless of the outcome of an action — failure or success. We are much more likely to reflect on our failures. Too often, we don't take time to learn from our accomplishments and never really understand the keys to our success and what lessons we can take forward.

Most of your managerial interactions with people will occur in the Prep and Review stages. Only with someone inexperienced or in situations of high stakes and high risk will you, or should you, be involved in the actual performance of a task.

Used this way consistently and consciously, Prep-Do-Review becomes a powerful management tool that will improve how you manage your people. By giving you ways to be involved without directly intruding as your people do their work, it will make your interactions with them richer, improve outcomes, help people learn, and make you a better delegator.

If you operate this way as a boss consistently, you'll find certain core management tasks become easier and more systematic. It will let you delegate more intelligently, based on both a person's skill and experience level and on the situation. It will help you coach people more effectively; indeed, it will help you turn many tasks into learning experiences. And it will let you use your time more effectively by helping you determine when you do and don't need to be involved.

With very experienced people, and especially with routine tasks, you needn't be involved in either Prep or Do, but as a boss you never completely let go of the Review stage. You may not review outcomes after every task, but ongoing performance review is something you'll never give up entirely.

If you think about it, Prep-Do-Review is the fundamental cycle of activities by which effective bosses manage — through a perpetual loop of prep-do-review-prep-do-review. By using it to become more mindful and deliberate in all you do, it will help you convert mundane workaday activities into management activities. It will help you make progress through the daily work. And it's the way you guide your people, produce results, and help them learn without inserting yourself unnecessarily into what they do. It's not the solution to every management challenge, but it's a powerful approach and the closest thing to a management secret that we know.

Leadership Diagnostic: Are You Having Maximum Impact?

For most of us, the high-impact leader lurking inside comes out only on our best days. If you find yourself in this category—if you’re not getting the leadership traction you want—ask yourself these questions. If most of your answers are “no,” you may be getting in your own way.

1. Overemphasizing Personal Goals

Do I spend most of my time as a manager thinking about what other people in the organization need to succeed?

Does the “best version” of my employees show up in my presence?

Does their best version endure in my absence?


2. Protecting Your Public Image

Do I ever stop monitoring myself and simply do my job?

Have I been willing to “look bad” in the service of my team or organization?

Do I explicitly model the attitudes and behaviors I want others in my organization to adopt?

3. Turning Competitors into Enemies

Is it rare for me to feel defensive, insecure, or judgmental?

Is it rare for people to feel defensive, insecure, or judgmental around me?

Is my environment generally free of people I can’t stand to be around?


4. Going It Alone

Do I have a core group of people who help me make important decisions?

Do I have people around me who can handle both my audacity and my insecurities?

Do the most important people in my life participate in my leadership dreams?

5. Waiting for Permission

Is it possible to make a difference from my current position?

Do I have control over when I’ll be able to have a meaningful impact?

Could I become a leader before other people see me as one?

Sales Teams: Forum on analyzing performance based on stats

This company has 11 reps (a – k on the graph) and like every sales team, there is a wide variety of skills, effort and personalities. So here are the questions:

• Who would you consider the top rep
• Who is the worst rep
• Who would you cut and why?
• What individual training would you suggest
• What group training would you suggest
• Any comments on lead to closing ratios
• Which rep should be the bench mark for success based on their activity. 

These reports were pulled from Front Row Solutions CRM and are based on a 12 month window.  The assumption is that all the reps have been employed continuously the past 12 months.

 I look forward to your insights!

What not to do when interviewing for a sales role

I have been recruiting for one of my clients recently and I have to tell you, it still get surprised the odd time by unprofessional responses.

It's important to understand that the person interviewing you is trying to predict future behavior. If you can't comply to requests from the interviewer (within reason) you have to understand that they may be making observations on your ability to work as a team, follow leadership, your writing ability and your responsiveness to potential customers.

This is a real email I received and an example of how not to respond:

Hello Susan,


Sorry but my copier is not working at all at this time. So I will not be able to get you a copy of my resume. But I can confirm that I can make our appointment for Tuesday am. Could you confirm that you got this email and our meeting is confirmed.


If a candidate can not be resourceful enough to find a printer, how hard will he try with a customer?

The use of highlighting and capital letters is perceived as email yelling or making the statement loud.  This is not a tone you want to take with a potential employer.

The grammar and writing style uses the same word twice in a sentence and no one should start a sentence with "But".

Responding to a recruiter should not be taken lightly. How you interact now will influence if you are moved forward in the process.

Thanks,

Susan

Sales Best Practices: Where Will You Find the Time?

I wanted to preface this blog article as I would not want the power of the message lost. I used to work for a great sales manager, Dave Brown. He was tough and fair. He taught me discipline and persistence but more importantly he taught me how to work smart and hard.

Back in the late 90's, I made a base of $36k and on target was $70k. Dave would not let us do anything but be on the phone from 9 to 5. No emails (not there were many), no correspondence, no expense forms - nothing but selling. My first year I made $125k.

What Dave taught me was that the extra time pays dividends.

Enjoy

_____________________________________________________________________________

By: Anthony Iannarino

Time is a deep fundamental. You have to use it well—very well—to produce the best results possible. Much of what you need to do to produce sales results isn’t urgent. More still, much of what needs done doesn’t show up on the reports that your sales manager requires.


Prospecting and nurturing are two vital activities salespeople fail to spend time on. To produce better results, you have to find the time to religiously focus on these tasks and activities. Here is where you’ll find the time.
Arrive Earlier, Stay Later

Your company may require you to work from 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM. That may be what they require, but it may not have anything at all to do with what succeeding wildly requires of you.
Getting to work even a half hour earlier to respond to emails, to do your follow up work, or to update your sales force automation means that you gain a half hour later in the day. If you stay an extra half hour to prepare your call lists for the next day, you will have gained a full hour.
That extra hour on an 8-hour day is 11% increase in the time you work. By shifting the time you do administrative tasks, you will find an additional hour to invest in productive prospecting or nurturing activities.
You may have to wake up an hour earlier.
Skip Lunch, Or Make It Meaningful

The most effective people I know do one of three things at lunchtime; they skip lunch, they eat at their desk, or they have lunch with a client, prospect, or someone in their network.
Skipping lunch (or working through your lunch) will buy you another hour of productivity. Skipping lunch or eating at your desk is good for two days each week.
Then, schedule a client lunch and invest your time in those relationships, schedule a dream client for lunch and nurture that relationship, and schedule someone in your network for a working lunch.
What if you don’t have anyone to take on one of those days? Then schedule someone from another department within your own company and nurture the internal relationships and grease the skids to make sure that you deliver for your dream clients and clients.
Doing both of the above will find you a net 22% increase in your productive work time. But there is still more.
Avoiding the Weapons of Mass Distraction

This one only gives you back the time you normally waste. This means eliminating much of time you spend with the weapons of mass distraction, the Internet, most emails, more than half your phone calls, and much of time you spend at the water cooler.
If you are completely and totally honest with yourself, there is almost always an hour to be found in time wasted on distractions and novelties. You have to firewall your time from distractions, and you have to plan your day so that you do what is necessary and not urgent.
By doing so, you can easily find another full hour to spend prospecting, nurturing your dream clients, or taking care of your existing clients. This is without suggesting that you do what the most successful salespeople do, which is to do a couple hours of work from home (especially all their administrative tasks and duties).
Protect your time. Invest it wisely in opening and nurturing the relationships that you need to gain and win opportunities.
What could an extra hour each day invested in real sales activities do for your results? (That’s 260 hours over the course of the year, or an extra 6.5 weeks)

The Six Real Reasons Why VPs of Sales are Fired

From the Heavy Hitter Wisdom

It can be well-argued that the vice president of sales is the most important position within a company since their words and actions impact the organization’s most critical issue—generating revenue. However, the average job tenures of vice presidents of sales is now at an all time low of eighteen months to twenty-four months.


Obviously, one of the main reasons VPs of sales are fired is because they miss the revenue target. However, with the economy in the tank this traditional measuring stick doesn’t tell the entire story. In fact, many VP of sales are “let go” at the wrong time and for all the wrong reasons today. Quite often the CEO mistakenly believes the grass will instantly become greener with the addition of a new sales leader. Unfortunately, this tumultuous changing of the executive guard can do far more harm than good in both the short and long term. With this in mind, here are the six real reasons why a vice president of sales should be fired.

Inability to Recruit “A” level Talent. Outside of revenue generation, the most important task for every vice president of sales is to attract, hire, and retain top-level talent. In other words, the VP of sales must present the compelling closing arguments to “A” quality salespeople as to why they should join the company. More importantly, the VP of sales should be able to recruit high quality “A” level managers. Because, “A” level managers hire “A” level salespeople and “B” level managers hire “B” and “C” level salespeople. The cascading effect of diminishing talent kills the competitiveness of the sales organization. This is particularly true for smaller companies that must compete against a gorilla (Oracle, IBM, Cisco, etc.) in their industry.

Wrong Sales Culture. The sales organization’s culture dramatically impacts the ability to achieve revenue. Three of the worst sales cultures are based upon secrecy, dominance, or submission. A secretive sales culture is one where there is a conscious effort to withhold information from the rest of the company. As a result, there is a black hole of customer information and engineering and marketing are always guessing about what they should do next. A dominant sales culture takes bullying to the extreme. They condescendingly steam roll the other departments of the company to get what they want and cut corners wherever possible. At the other end of the spectrum is a culture based upon submission and inferiority. Think about it for a moment, if the sales organization doesn’t have enough backbone to fight internal battles inside their own company how can they be expected to vanquish the competition in the field?

Inaccurate Forecasting. Does the VP of sales have the pulse of the sales organization? Does he look through rose colored glasses over-optimistically at the forecast or with so much pessimism that it is impossible to decipher what business is real? Is he well-versed on the major deals and close enough to the salespeople to discern unachievable pipe dreams from real pipeline? Are there continual surprises and is bad news continually delivered at the last possible moment? Remember what Machiavelli said, bad news should be given all at once and as soon as possible.

Executive Team Combativeness. Since the sales function relies so heavily on the other departments (engineering, marketing, customer support, etc.) to achieve success, it is completely natural that friction develops between members of the executive team. And, the VP of sales who tenaciously fights for his department’s causes should be respected. However, a change is warranted when this turns into a personal vendetta against other executive team members.

Is the VP of Sales a Strategist? Can he or she create a competitive sales strategy based upon marketplace realities (and implement a process to execute it)? Does he aggregate meaningful product feedback and articulately represent the customer’s experience? Does he help advise marketing as to which programs to pursue and how best to spend their precious dollars? Most of all, can he dovetail his sales philosophy to the company’s ever-changing strategic direction?

Does He Add Value in C-Level Executive Customer Meetings? One of the most critical and often overlooked aspects of the VP of Sales job is the ability to participate in C-Level customer meetings and convince company leaders to buy. Does your VP of sales sit in the safe confines of the ivory tower at headquarters or is he able to make a direct impact on the most important deals in the field?

I remember hearing a vice president of sales publicly pronounce that all his problems would be solved if only he could, “Make the monkeys climb higher in the trees.” His tongue-in-cheek criticism was the topic of conversation within his sales force for months. To his salespeople, it was just another example of a management style that they found to be repugnant. Anyone who creates an environment like that should be fired.

Conversely, I have the pleasure to work with many very talented sales VP’s. They are great recruiters, masterful forecasters, and serve as mentors to sales managers and salespeople alike. They are charismatic leaders who measure their success using three criteria; meeting revenue goals, creating an environment where the entire team can succeed, and helping the entire company realize its potential. While they are not perfect, they are well-liked and a unifying force for the entire organization.

As a side note, one thing that can really hurt a VP is fishing off the company Pier. With power can come attention and adoration. I have seen a few VP's in my time fall due to inter office romance.

Twitter for Business: 2011 Directory of Techies to follow on Twitter

By Jason Hiner
If you’re interested in technology and you want to know who to follow on Twitter, here is a directory of leading tech journalists, commentators, and personalities, divided by categories and specialties.

As I’ve been saying for years, Twitter can be an extremely valuable tool for techies — if you know who to use it. The most important factor in making Twitter useful is knowing who to follow. To help people interested in technology, I published a list of 100 techies on Twitter in 2009 and then updated the list to 140 techies in 2010.

It’s time to update the list again, since lots of new tech commentators and personalities have joined Twitter during the past year and I’ve discovered some new names worth following. My list is up to 180. However, instead of simply adding to the numbers, I’ve decided to break the list into categories to make it easier navigate. In each category I’ve listed the people alphabetically.

For updates on the latest tech news you can find me on Twitter at @jasonhiner

If you’re new to Twitter, I’d recommend reading my article on the four stages of a typical Twitter user and my quick Twitter guide and glossary for business users. Also, if you’re new to Twitter and you’re clicking through the names listed below, there’s an important thing to note. You should ignore all of the posts that begin with an @username. Those are individual replies. You will not see those in your Twitter stream (unless you follow the user being mentioned, which will be rare). Focus on the posts that simply begin with text in order to get an idea of the kinds of things that the person posts on Twitter. That’s the stuff that will show up in your Twitter stream if you follow them.

Learn More » The people I’ve listed here are technology executives, journalists, pundits, and analysts who not only have a Twitter account, but also post actively about the tech industry. If there are people you’d recommend added to the list, post a note in the discussion at the bottom of the article.

I wish there was a way to simply let you follow everyone on this list with a single click. There was a utility called TweepML that used to let you create one-click lists, but it is currently down for maintenance. Once TweepML is available again, I will create a version of this list with that tool.
However, I have created this as an official Twitter list called Hiner Tech Directory so that you can also follow the list that way. In fact, if you have a desktop client like TweetDeck or HootSuite or Seesmic, you can simply add the Hiner Tech Directory list in its own column and view it as a feed separate from your main Twitter feed.

General technology

•Chris Anderson (@chr1sa) Editor in Chief of Wired and author of The Long Tail

•Michael Arrington (@arrington) Founder of TechCrunch

•Patrick Beja (@notpatrick) French podcaster and tech commentator

•Bianca Bosker (@bbosker) Technology Editor for The Huffington Post

•Henry Blodget (@hblodget) Controversial Wall Street journalist who covers tech sector

•Rick Broida (@cheapskateblog) CNET blogger scours the Web looking for the best deals in tech

•Brian Cooley (@briancooley) CNET car-tech editor

•Charles Cooper (@coopeydoop) Veteran tech reporter for cbsnews.com

•Dan Costa (@dancosta) Executive editor at PC Magazine

•Robert Cringley (@cringely) Long-time technology writer and pundit

•Chris Dawson (@mrdatahs) ZDNet blogger on technology in education

•Michael Dell (@michaeldell) CEO of Dell

•Sam Diaz (@sammyd) ZDNet news hound on the Between the Lines blog

•Larry Dignan (@ldignan) ZDNet Editor in Chief; prolific tech news blogger

•Cory Doctorow (@doctorow) Co-editor of Boing Boing; digital rights activist

•Jack Dorsey (@jack) CEO of Square; creator and co-founder of Twitter

•John C. Dvorak (@therealdvorak) Famously cranky tech pundit

•Esther Dyson (@edyson) Veteran technology pundit

•Mike Elgan (@mikeelgan) Widely-published freelance tech writer

•Rob Enderle (@enderle) Long-time analyst of the PC industry

•Michael Gartenberg (@gartenberg) Gartner analyst on consumer technology

•Denise Howell (@dhowell) Lawyer; commentator on technology and law

•Mathew Ingram (@mathewi) Canadian tech writer for GigaOm

•Shibani Joshi (@shibanijoshi) Fox Business Network reporter on tech and the NASDAQ

•Mitch Kapor (@mkapor) Lotus, Mozilla pioneer; angel investor

•Vinod Khosla (@vkhosla) One of the tech world’s most influential venture capitalists

•Adrian Kingsley-Hughes (@the_pc_doc) Technology hardware commentator at ZDNet

•Martin Lamonica (@mlamonica) CNET writer on green technology

•Leo Laporte (@leolaporte) Host of TWiT network and former TechTV host

•Cali Lewis (@calilewis) Host of GeekBrief.TV

•Katie Linendall (@katielinendoll) On-air geek tipster for CNN, CBS, and others

•Jim Louderback (@jlouderb) CEO of Revision3; former editor of PC Magazine

•Om Malik (@om) Founder of GigaOm

•John Markoff (@markoff) Science writer for The New York Times

•Harry McCracken (@harrymccracken) Founder of Technologizer and former editor of PC World

•Declan McCullagh (@declanm) CBS News correspondent on US tech policy

•Tom Merritt (@acedtect) Host of Tech News Today on the TWiT network

•Clayton Morris (@claytonmorris) Fox TV personality covering geek topics and social media

•Natali Morris (@natalimorris) CNET TV host of Loaded and tech correspondent for CBS News

•Walt Mossberg (@waltmossberg) Tech columnist for The Wall Street Journal

•Patrick Norton (@patricknorton) Tekzilla host and former TechTV personality

•Andrew Nusca (@editorialiste) ZDNet news writer; SmartPlanet.com editor

•John Paczkowski (@johnpaczkowski) Tech news hound for All Things Digital

•Jason Perlow (@jperlow) ZDNet technology columnist

•Chris Pirillo (@chrispirillo) Tech geek turned Internet personality

•David Pogue (@pogue) Tech columnist for New York Times and CNBC

•Jason Pontin (@jason_pontin) Editor in Chief of MIT Technology Review

•Seth Porges (@sethporges) Tech editor at Popular Mechanics magazine

•JR Rafael (@jr_raphael) Tech news writer for PC World

•Gabe Rivera (@gaberivera) Founder of Techmeme

•Jack Schofield (@jackschofield) Computer editor at The Guardian

•MG Siegler (@parislemon) TechCrunch news writer

•Dwight Silverman (@dsilverman) Technology editor for the Houston Chronicle

•Brad Stone (@bradstone) Technology reporter for Bloomberg Businessweek

•Robert Strohmeyer (@rstrohmeyer) Freelance tech columnist

•Kara Swisher (@karaswisher) Silicon Valley blogger for AllThingsD.com

•Baratunde Thurston (@baratunde) Editor, writer, and comedian; one of the funniest techies on Twitter

•Dan Tynan (@tynan_on_tech) Tech humor columnist and veteran tech writer

•Lance Ulanoff (@lanceulanoff) Editor in Chief of PC Magazine

•Padmasree Warrior (@padmasree) CTO of Cisco Systems

•Molly Wood (@mollywood) CNET TV host and writer; creator of the famed “Molly rant”

•Becky Worley (@bworley) ABC technology reporter, TWiT network host

Mobile computing

•Bonnie Cha (@bonniecnet) CNET mobile tech editor

•Jessica Dolcourt (@jdolcourt) CNET mobile tech reporter

•Bob Egan (@bobegan) Analyst on mobile tech; Wi-Fi pioneer

•Ina Fried (@inafried) AllThingsD.com mobile reporter

•Jonathan Geller (@boygenius) Founder and Editor in Chief of Boy Genius Report

•Kent German (@kentgerman) CNET mobile tech editor

•Nicole Lee (@nicole) CNET mobile tech reporter

•Stuart Miles (@stuartmiles) Founder of Pocket-lint.com

•Matthew Miller (@palmsolo) ZDNet blogger on mobile computing

•Maggie Reardon (@maggie_reardon) CNET reporter on mobile and wireless technology

•Sascha Seagan (@saschasegan) Mobile writer for PC Magazine

•Mark Spoonauer (@mspoonauer) Editor in Chief of Laptop Magazine

•Kevin Tofel (@kevinctofel) Mobile site editor for GigaOm

•Tony Vincent (@tonyvincent) Writer on mobile tech and IT in education

Enterprise

•Marc Benioff (@benioff) CEO of Salesforce.com

•David Berlind (@dberlind) TechWeb Editor-in-Chief

•Toni Bowers (@tbowers928) TechRepublic IT career columnist

•Tony Bradley (@tonys3kur3) Freelance tech writer specializing in security

•David Davis (@davidmdavis) Author, blogger, expert on Cisco and virtualization technologies

•Bill Detwiler (@billdetwiler) TechRepublic’s Head Technology Editor

•Erik Eckel (@erikeckel) IT consultant and TechRepublic writer

•Scot Finnie (@scotfinnie) Editor in Chief of Computerworld

•Steve Gillmor (@stevegillmor) Veteran tech journalist

•Bob Gourley (@bobgourley) CTOvision.com blogger; government IT expert

•Dion Hinchcliffe (@dhinchcliffe) Blogger and consultant on Web 2.0 for business

•Chuck Hollis (@chuckhollis) EMC CTO and blogger

•Alex Howard (@digiphile) Government 2.0 Correspondent for 
O’Reilly Media

•Doug Kaye (@dougkaye) Founder of IT Conversations

•Michael Krigsman (@mkrigsman) Watchdog of IT project failures

•Scott Lowe (@otherscottlowe) CIO, author, and TechRepublic columnist

•Abbie Lundberg (@abbielundberg) Former editor in chief of CIO Magazine

•Steve Ranger (@steveranger) Editor of UK IT site Silicon.com

•Don Tennant (@dontennant) Former editor in chief of Computerworld

•Rick Vanover (@rickvanover) Senior IT professional and TechRepublic blogger

•Werner Vogels (@werner) Amazon.com CTO

•Alex Wolfe (@awolfe58) Editor in Chief of InformationWeek

Microsoft

•Todd Bishop (@toddbishop) Seattle-based Microsoft reporter

•Ed Bott (@edbott) Microsoft Windows expert, blogger, book author

•Mary Jo Foley (@maryjofoley) Notable source on all things on Microsoft

•Bill Gates (@billgates) Microsoft co-founder and former CEO

•Mark Kaelin (@markwkaelin) TechRepublic editor covering Windows and PCs

•Frank X. Shaw (@fxshaw) PR chief at Microsoft

•Deb Shinder (@debshinder) Popular tech tip writer for TechRepublic and other publications

•Paul Thurrott (@thurrott) Microsoft Windows columnist, editor, and podcaster

•Stefan Weitz (@stefanweitz) Search chief at Microsoft

Apple

•Jacqui Cheng (@eJacqui) Apple editor for Ars Technica

•Jim Dalrymple (@jdalrymple) Editor of The Loop, veteran Apple columnist

•Philip Elmer-DeWitt (@philiped) Apple reporter for Fortune Magazine

•John Gruber (@gruber) Author of Daring Fireball

•Andy Ihnatko (@ihnatko) Apple pundit

•Guy Kawasaki (@guykawasaki) Venture capitalist, former Apple employee, former Mac columnist

•Steven Levy (@stevenjayl) Author and columnist on Apple topics

•Tim Robertson (@mymac) Podcaster; founder of MyMac.com

•John Siracusa (@siracusa) Apple writer for Ars Technica

•Jason Snell (@jsnell) Editorial Director of Macworld

•Brian Tong (@brian_tong) CNET TV host of AppleByte and Prizefight

•Seth Weintraub (@llsethj) Columnist covering Google and Apple

Google

•John Battelle (@johnbattelle) Author and pundit on Google and Internet search

•Matt Cutts (@mattcutts) Google engineer, blogger

•Chris DiBona (@cdibona) Open source spokesman at Google

•Vic Gundotra (@vicgundotra) Google VP of engineering for mobile apps

•Marissa Mayer (@marissamayer) Google product development executive

•Andy Rubin (@arubin) Head of Android development at Google

•Eric Schmidt (@ericschmidt) Chairman of Google

•Gina Trapani (@ginatrapani) Host of This Week in Google podcast

Open source

•Matt Asay (@mjasay) COO of Ubuntu and open source columnist

•John “Mad Dog” Hall (@maddoghall) Free software advocate

•Doc Searls (@dsearls) Tech journalist, author, open source advocate

•Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols (@sjvn) Long-time Linux and open source columnist

•Jack Wallen (@jlwallen) Linux enthusiast, columnist, and tip writer

Web and social media

•Randall Bennett (@randallb) Founder of TechVi, Web video specialist

•Tim Berners-Lee (@timberners_lee) Inventor of the World Wide Web

•Paul Boutin (@paulboutin) Reporter for VentureBeat, The New York Times, and Wired

•Danah Boyd (@zephoria) Academic/researcher in new media

•Jason Calacanis (@jason) CEO of Mahalo, founder of Weblogs Inc.

•Pete Cashmore (@mashable) CEO of Mashable

•Mrinal Desai (@mrinaldesai) Tech startup founder; tech news junkie

•Caterina Fake (@caterina) Co-founder of Flickr

•John Furrier (@furrier) Silicon Valley entrepreneur

•Jeff Jarvis (@jeffjarvis) Professor and author who covers tech and new media

•Sarah Lacy (@sarahcuda) Freelance author covering Silicon Valley

•Shira Lazar (@shiralazar) Web video journalist covering the intersection of tech, culture, and new media

•Jennifer Leggio (@mediaphyter) ZDNet blogger on social media for business

•Charlene Li (@charleneli) Author and social media thought leader

•Amber MacArther (@ambermac) Tech journalist and broadcaster

•Richard MacManus (@rww) Editor and founder of ReadWriteWeb

•Andrew Mager (@mager) Web developer and ZDNet blogger on Web 2.0

•Caroline McCarthy (@caro) CNET writer covering Web 2.0

•Matt Mullenweg (@photomatt) Founder of WordPress

•Rafe Needleman (@rafe) Editor of CNET’s Webware

•Tim O’Reilly (@timoreilly) Founder and CEO of O’Reilly Media

•Jeremiah Owyang (@jowyang) Forrester analyst on new media technologies

•Aza Razkin (@azaaza) Former creative lead for Firefox

•Kevin Rose (@kevinrose) Founder of Digg.com, host of Diggnation

•Joshua Schachter (@joshu) Creator of Delicious, a.k.a. del.icio.us

•Erick Schonfeld (@erickschonfeld) TechCrunch co-editor

•Robert Scoble (@scobleizer) Tech writer and social media flag-bearer

•Stephen Shankland (@stshank) CNET News reporter, covering the Web

•Joel Spolsky (@spolsky) Co-founder of Stack Overflow

•Owen Thomas (@owenthomas) Writer at VentureBeat

•Alexia Tsotsis (@alexia) TechCrunch reporter

•Fred Wilson (@fredwilson) Tech venture capitalist in New York

•Dave Winer (@davewiner) “The father of blogging and RSS” (BBC)

•Jonathan Zittrain (@zittrain) Author and Harvard professor covering the Internet

Consumer electronics

•Donald Bell (@donald) Gadget reporter for CNET

•Veronica Belmont (@veronica) Host of Tekzilla and Qore, and former CNET TV host

•Ryan Block (@ryan) Former Engadget editor and co-founder of GDGT

•David Carnoy (@davidcarnoy) CNET editor of mobile gadgets

•Jason Chen (@diskopo) Gizmodo editor

•Brian Lam (@blam) Editorial Director of Gizmodo

•Erica Ogg (@ericainsf) Gadget reporter for CNET

•Nilay Patel (@reckless) Managing Editor of Engadget

•Don Reisinger (@donreisinger) Gadget columnist for CNET

•Peter Rojas (@peterrojas) Founding editor of both Gizmodo and Engadget

•Ross Rubin (@rossrubin) NPD head analyst on consumer technology

•Joanna Stern (@joannastern) Engadget reporter

•Jeremy Toeman (@jtoeman) Consumer electronics startup advisor

•Joshua Topolsky (@joshuatopolsky) Editor in Chief of Engadget

•Dave Zatz (@davezatz) Gadget and digital lifestyle blogger