Steve Rubel is a senior marketing strategist and expert on conversational marketing. In 2004 he started Micro Persuasion, a blog that focuses on how blogging affects the public relations industry. Visit his blog here.

What is your background, and how did your interests in business, blogging, and marketing develop?

Other than a brief detour after college, I have been working in the PR industry my entire career. I have also been enamored with technology for more than 25 years. My first computer was an Atari 800 which my Dad and I programmed in Basic together. I have been online actively since the late 1980s.

I've always been a net junkie and started reading blogs and RSS feeds around 2003. Two of the first blogs I discovered were Dave Winer's and Robert Scoble's. They are two of my faves today. I was working at a small agency and saw an opportunity to get two of my clients blogging in early 2004. They had a lot of success with it. It helped them get more media coverage and from there I was hooked.

I started my own blog a few months later and my interest for democratized media has only expanded dramatically since. It's by far my #1 passion and I spend probably 80% of my waking time on activities related to learning about this revolution and thinking/speaking/acting on it to help Edelman and our clients prosper from it. My blog is part of this process.

How can a startup company use blogging effectively?

Although it's harder than it used to be to get noticed, startups can use blogging and other forms of technology to become part of the water cooler conversations that are relevant to their business. The key is not only to talk about your product/service but to connect to higher order themes that the community is talking about daily. Then you need to find a way to add value to that conversation in a meaningful way.

From your personal experience as a blogger, what advice do you have for people looking to start a blog?

Micro Persuasion has taken me to places I never dreamed possible. If I knew it was going to help me get this fantastic role at Edelaman (which I love), attain more media recognition than perhaps anyone deserves and connect me with titans of business I probably would have been too chicken to start it! Most of all, it keeps me sharp. My readers challenge me to be my best. It is how I learn.

The best advice I can offer - and this isn't just for blogging - is to find a passion for a dream and then develop the work ethic to make it come true. My life and work passions are aligned so I never feel like blogging is work. I pound the blog rock every day because it's aligned with my personality, lifestyle and interests. That's true for many people who have been successful.

What is the most useful piece of advice someone has given you?

The most useful advice I get, believe it or not, is from people I have never met. I immerse myself studying the work habits and personalities of leaders from business and other walks of life. I devour everything I can get my hands on - books, video, articles, etc. It's an eclectic mix. Everyone from Arnold Shwarznegger, Mark Cuban to Google's Marissa Mayer to Patriots coach Bill Belichick and Avery Johnson (coach of the Dallas Mavericks) to Bill Clinton, Ben Franklin, Bill Gates and Steve Jobs are studied in detail. I feel like they're on my personal board of directors! I throw these articles into a database and refer to them in different situations. It's too hard to pick up one thing but some key traits emerge: charisma, guts, passion, work ethic, organizational skills, people skills, leadership, ability to handling adversity and more.

What are some mistakes you've made that others could learn and benefit from?

I have a tendency to worry too much - obsessively. A lot of it are fears that aren't justified and partially imagined stuff. I've gotten better over the years, but it's still hard to turn off. I think a lot of people have this inner worry wort inside them that is hard to silence. Perhaps people will take comfort in knowing that they're part of the same club. The key is to recognize what's real and what's imagined. I am getting better at that every day. Adversity helps.

If you could go back ten or fifteen years, is there anything you would do differently, knowing what you know now?

I really have had no regrets in my life. I had a chance to experience the first Internet boom up close and then the bust. So it's fun to see the enthusiasm reviving again. Perhaps what I would have done differently is applied my love for the Net sooner than I did, but I don't feel like that caused me to lose too much time so far.