Two men who have been at the vanguard of social media and the disruptive evolution that different ways of working and communicating have emerged in businesses everywhere over the past decade are Robert Scoble and Shel Israel.

Their seminal work Naked Conversations, published in 2006, shone a spotlight on the then-emerging world of blogging and the changes being wrought to business practices by enlightened individuals in organizations everywhere.

In their new book, Age of Context: Mobile, Sensors, Data and the Future of Privacy, Scoble and Israel widen their spotlight to examine five converging forces – mobile, data, sensors and location-based technology – that promise to change virtually every aspect of our lives.

In this near one-hour FIR Interview, co-hosts Neville Hobson and Shel Holtz explore the themes revealed in the book with the two authors, discussing topics ranging from privacy to personal contextual assistants; and consider the self-publishing model the authors employed to bring their book to market.

“Be prepared to see the future in these pages,” declares Salesforce.com founder and CEO Marc Benioff, writing in the book’s foreword. With over 100 5-star reviews on Amazon, it’s a view that many readers already agree with.

Age of Context is available now in paperback and ebook formats.

Listen Now:

Get this podcast:

• Download the MP3 file (23.4Mb, 58:35)
• Get the show on iTunes
• Subscribe to the FIR Interviews RSS feed
• Get the FIR app for your mobile device – iPhone | Android | Windows 8 / Windows Phone

About our Conversation Partners

Robert Scoble is an American blogger, technical evangelist, and author. As a startup liaison for Rackspace, the Open Cloud Computing Company, he travels the world looking for what’s happening on the bleeding edge of technology.

Robert has interviewed thousands of executives and technology innovators, and reports for Building 43 and in social media.

He is the co-author, with Forbes columnist Shel Israel, of Age of Context. Their previous book, Naked Conversations: How Blogs are Changing the Way Businesses Talk with Customers, published in 2006, has been called a watershed work in introducing business to social media.

• Connect with Robert on Facebook.

Shel Israel helps businesses tell their stories in engaging ways, as a writer, consultant and presentation coach.

He is the author and co-author of five books including Age of Context – his latest book, co-written with Robert Scoble and released in September 2013 – Naked Conversations and Twitterville.

Shel currently writes the Contextual Beat column for Forbes.com. Previously he has contributed to BusinessWeek, Dow Jones, Fast Company and American Express Open Forum.

• Connect with Shel on Facebook.

Share your comments or questions about this podcast, or suggestions for future podcasts, in the online FIR Podcast Community on Google+.

You can also send us instant voicemail via SpeakPipe, right from the FIR website. Or, call the Comment Line at +1 415 895 2971 (North America), +44 20 3239 9082 (Europe), or Skype: fircomments. You can tweet us: @FIRpodcast. And you can email us at fircomments@gmail.com. If you wish, you can email your comments, questions and suggestions as MP3 file attachments (max. 3 minutes / 5Mb attachment, please!). We’ll be happy to see how we can include your audio contribution in a show.

To receive all For Immediate Release podcasts including the weekly Hobson & Holtz Report, subscribe to the full RSS feed.

This FIR Interview is brought to you with Lawrence Ragan Communications, serving communicators worldwide for 35 years. Information: www.ragan.com.

Podsafe music – On A Podcast Instrumental Mix (MP3, 5Mb) by Cruisebox.

(Cross-posted from For Immediate Release, Shel’s and my podcast blog.)

Related posts:

• The Age of Context comes to London in October
• How to Understand the Conversational Era of Communication – a review of Naked Conversations, May 2006
• An open conversation with Robert Scoble, Microsoft geek blogger – FIR Interview, March 2005