Michael Hyatt, President, CEO and total geek
Michael Hyatt, President and CEO of Thomas Nelson, the largest publisher of Christian books, Bibles and other materials in the world (and the ninth largest publisher overall), is also a self-professed geek.
In a recent Twitter conversation, he said "Paul, yes, I am a total Geek. I admit it!"
Case-in-point, since starting in March of this year he has maintained a at Twitter sharing anecdotal information about his life and company. And, best of all, he takes the time to interact with other Twits.
But, the story of Hyatt's "geekdom" doesn't begin and end there. He embraced blogging in April 2004 and continues to actively maintain From Where I Sit with a fresh post every few days. (Heck, he's a more frequent poster than I am!)
In early 2005, I had the wonderful opportunity to interview Hyatt for a podcast. There I was, a fledgling start-up, not-well-known business blog consultant interviewing the head of Thomas Nelson. Who'd uh thunk it!
At that time, blogs were a "level ground" where people great or small could connect on more or less equal terms. That's what we were, two bloggers talking about a craft we both loved and continued to explore. (I believe Twitter now serves that role, as blogs no longer do. We'll see how long it takes before Twitter turns into a social media caste system!)
Hyatt is a model other CEO bloggers should follow. His posts are more often than not warm, personable and, at times, very transparent. Take, for example, his post, The Importance of a Leader's Heart. In it he tells a very personal story of an incident where he thought he was having a heart attack, then turns the post into an object lesson on leadership.
"Three years ago, I was in New York City on business," says Hyatt. "I was having a relaxing dinner with David Dunham, one of my colleagues and a dear friend. Suddenly, as we were finishing our meal, I started to have chest pains. Initially, I tried to ignore them. But then I began to quietly panic. I felt that the room was closing in on me."
I think that qualifies as transparent. Like I said, a model CEO blogger.
So, how often do you get to talk to the President and CEO of a large corporation? Not often I bet. Thanks to Michael's willingness to make himself available via Twitter, I did, and in so doing found that that he's not only a well-respected chief executive, but a "total geek" and a very nice guy to boot.
Do you know of other CEO's with a presence on Twitter? If so, please leave a comment with their name and possibly Twitter ID.
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