I have yet to meet Chris in person, but his passion for his work is apparent!

His signature line says it all:

Christopher S. Penn

Read: www.ChristopherSPenn.com

Hire: www.AwakenYourSuperhero.com

Listen: www.MarketingOverCoffee.com

Listen: www.FinancialAidPodcast.com

Attend: www.PodCampBoston.org

It cleverly encourages you to action. Here is an overview of Chris‘ many areas of interest. I know that Chris places a high value on education.

Connie: Your work is obviously a passion. How did you get started in college
financing topics & how long have you been involved?

Chris: I’ve been in education finance now for more than 4 years, coming to it from working in credit union data centers. The real impetus, though, to be passionate about the work itself started when I started the Financial Aid Podcast in 2005. Nothing inspires passion like talking
to real people with real problems to solve.

Connie: As a parent paying for college I have to admit it’s like buying a new car each year. Are you reaching out to young parents to encourage them to start planning?

Chris: Absolutely, but also encouraging students themselves to take charge of their college finance experience. There are tons of scholarships out there, many with only a few competitors, so with some planning ahead of time and some work, paying for college using mostly free money is possible.

Connie: In regard to the FAFSA (Federal Application For Student Aid), We chose to not fill it out this because of the results from last year (ie: nothing). What is your reaction to that?

Chris: Generally speaking, it’s better to fill it out than not, simply because it doesn’t cost you anything to complete one, and you *might* qualify for something. Given even a small chance of being eligible for something isn’t a bad thing, and at the least, the student would qualify for Stafford loans, which are relatively low interest. (more details and disclosures at www.StaffordLoan.com)

Connie: How do you integrate social media tools into your work? Can you imagine your work without them? How would that affect your reach?

Chris: Social media is indispensable for my work, but not necessarily just because of reach. We use every practical tool we can at the Student Loan Network, from Facebook to good old fashioned email to even limited direct postal mail. It all depends on the audience. Where social media shines is that it forces me to be very disciplined in how I do my research and how I present material to the world. When you’re a senior executive at the average company, you don’t talk to customers all that often, and as a result, when you’re in meetings, you’re very often just guessing. “Consumers will love our new flexible scalable blah blah blah…” – you’ve heard it. Social media lets me stay in touch with the people we’re supposed to be serving, and have a very strong idea of what’s really on people’s minds as opposed to guessing. It also forces me to be super sure of my research because I can’t hide behind the corporate wall. If I publish something on my blog or podcast, I’m answerable to my audience for it,
so I have to give it my best shot.

Connie: Switching topics… You’re one of the founders of PodCamp Boston – what was the motivation for starting it? How has it evolved?

Chris: Truthfully, Chris Brogan and I didn’t want to travel to the West Coast for all the podcasting events! When we started PodCamp, PME, Podcast Academy, and Podcast Hotel were all West Coast events, which was frustrating, not to mention expensive. So we created PodCamp based on our experiences at BarCamp Boston. How has it evolved? It’s turned into a movement, and its scope has broadened to include new media in all its forms, not just podcasting. PodCamp’s mission now is more or less to be the welcome wagon conference for folks interested in new media. That’s our niche – bringing new people into new media, helping connect niches and verticals, pros and amateurs, everyone who wants to be involved in new media but isn’t sure where to start.

Shashi, our Social Media Swami, recently did a quick informal interview with Chris.

Are you the parent of a student or maybe a student attending college? What are your challenges in financing your education?

Last Saturday Podcamp DC was held at Rosslyn in VA and I got the opportunity to talk about how Small Business can make use of Social media and connect with their customers using new channels.

The small business owner is already a instinctive marketer and a social person who has very little time. The 3 point formula is LISTEN, PARTICIPATE, CONTRIBUTE. I have listed tools on the slides and talked about examples. Read the whole article and see the video and slides.

Kenneth Yeung a DC Blogger took this video of the presentation . Thank you Kenneth.

There was an interesting discussion on adding your own web site or article to Social Bookmarking sites and the collective conclusion of the room was that it was a fair chance for people to put their work in front of an audience that decides and ranks it. Nick O’Neil editor of Social Times gave his advice on social bookmarking.

Jim Long from NBC generated a discussion on the pros and cons of distributing your video on multiple channels. Peter Corbett of Istrategylabs and Andy Carvin of NPR talked about use cases where it was important to drive traffic to one particular website. If you have a marketing campaign that focuses on driving audience to a particular website then posting the video to multiple websites would dilute the traffic. If it is important for the video to spread virally then you should post it on different channels.

As a gag as I assured my audience – Not all of them were Small business owners- that I will help them have a successful Thanksgiving i.e when their friends or relatives who are small business owners ask them for advice at Thanksgiving they can use my presentation

Thanks to Tammy Munson and Joel Mark Witt for pulling this terrific event together. Network Solutions helped this community effort by sponsoring lunch for podcamp DC.

Other Bloggers who have written about presentations from Podcamp DC that may interest you:

Kenneth’ Blog http://blog.thelettertwo.com

Andrew Feinberg on CapitolValley.net

Helen Mosher

Thursday Bram

caseysoftware

techrepublican

wireless muse

joelogon

Jim Long

Justin Thorp

Aaron Brazell

Rob Carlson

Russell Heimlich