Veronica Belmont is a renaissance woman who does it all. She's like the Jay-Z for the tech world, a true hyphenate. She's a producer/host/present for all things digital and television. Since 2006, she has worked on projects for Gizmodo, CNET, Discovery Digital, Sony Play Station, the Doctor Who 50th Anniversary pre-show. I have attended SXSW for years and met Veronica this past year in Austin, TX. She was hosting a meetup for Sword and Laser her genre fiction podcast with Tom Merritt. In this episode we talk about the importance of meeting your community In Real Life (IRL). It's critical for people to meet their customers, fans, & community and face to face. Veronica is a former World of War Craft gamer who has met her gamer friends off-line for years. Veronica equates fan meet-ups to seeing the gamers IRL that she used to meet for drinks and happy hours in her gaming days. Veronica also wanted to be an expert at something from an early age. She's now an expert in numerous areas including technology, genre fiction and internet culture. We talk about an early life experience, and how she chatted with her Mom about cultivating her expertise shaped her career in more ways than she realized.  Veronica has years of technology, business and marketing advice that she shares in this episode of The Influencer Economy. Our website: http://www.influencereconomy.com/ Links of topics we discussed: You can watch Veronica on her current weekly show: Dear Veronica for Engadget The Sword and Laser podcast with Tom Merritt:Sword & Laser Vaginal Fantasy Book club: http://www.goodreads.com/group/show/62938-vaginal-fantasy-book-club Tom Merritt:  http://www.tommerritt.com/ Emerson College: http://www.emerson.edu/