Today, I am launching my new book, Platform: Get Noticed in a Noisy World (Nashville: Thomas Nelson). To celebrate, I am giving away seven bonuses worth $375.98 to everyone who buys a copy this week and e-mails me the receipt. I’ll share the details in a moment.

I won’t spend time in this post telling you about the book. I have created an entire page for that purpose, complete with endorsements from 27 people who were kind enough to read it before publication, including Seth Godin, Chris Brogan, Dave Ramsey, John Maxwell, and many, many others.

Ever since I did a video blog of my laptop bag, I have wanted to do one on my current carry-on bag. However, after watching George Clooney in Up on the Air, I was inspired to see if I could ditch my laptop bag and get everything into one carry-on. I even found a web site called “One Bag” that is devoted to this concept. Thankfully, my MacBook Air has made this possible.

So six weeks ago, I stopped carrying my laptop bag—at least on overnight trips. In fact, I am only using a separate laptop bag when the trip is longer than two nights. This may sound trivial, but traveling with just one bag has made a big difference for me. I arrive at my destination more rested, without the stress of keeping up with two bags.

Recently, Chris Brogan did a video blog on his new Eagle Creek Tarmac 22 carry-on bag. I was so impressed, I went to REI that afternoon and bought one. It have now taken several trips with it and love it.

Sometimes when I speak with marketing executives about social media, they seem to get it. But they don’t. Not really. They falsely believe that Twitter and Facebook are like every other broadcast channel. They see it as an opportunity to blast their message out to thousands of followers—for free!—and sell them stuff.

I am shamelessly stealing this idea from Chris Brogan and Brian Clark. If you aren’t following me on Twitter you should. Assuming you care—and you may not—it is like having a back-stage pass to my life.

On Twitter, I share such things as:

The most critical step in the hiring process is reference checking. This is important not only in hiring employees but especially in hiring consultants. Not everyone has the expertise they claim.

For example, I am increasingly being pitched by so-called “social media” experts. A very few are bona fide experts. Some are traditional media people, who are repacking the same old advice using the new buzz words. More than a few are unemployed marketing people who discovered Twitter last month.

I read a lot of books. But when I try to write a book review, I get all academic. For some reason, I feel like I have to write a treatise. So I thought I would try something new: a video book review.

I shamelessly stole this idea from Chris Brogan, one of my favorite bloggers. He frequently does two-minute book reviews—on video. He simply tells you a little bit about the book and what he thought of it. I thought, Perfect! This will work great for me.

Social networking is radically changing the traditional marketing landscape. This weekend, two of my business associates asked me how they could get up-to-speed quickly. After I found myself repeating the same information twice, I thought, Hmm. Maybe I should capture this in a blog post.

To become fluent in social networking, I recommend you do the following: