On this morning’s Affiliate Thing podcast, Shawn Collins announced that video pioneer and web celeb Ze Frank will give the keynote address at this summer’s Affiliate Summit in Miami from July 8-10, 2007.

If you haven’t been watching The Show with Ze Frank, I recommend you stop whatever you are doing and watch every episode from last March until now so that you can catch up. It is well worth your time. World-changing, mind-bending, thought-provoking and any other two word adjective you can create will only begin to describe the experience Ze has created there.

As Shawn and I discussed on today’s Affiliate Thing, the tools, resources and rules that have dominated online content authorship and consumption have completely changed in just a few years since the tools for content authorship became readily available. As with all systems of innovation, these changes will increase exponentially in the coming years.

Ze Frank has shown how to grow, interact, provoke and even monetize a dedicated (and mature) community. These are not just followers… they are interacting with Ze. And that’s revolutionary. And that’s an incredibly valuable (”value” means more than just money) model your company can learn from.

Check out what he’s done with “The Org” (look me up under “samharrelson”).

Here’s my favorite episode, btw. Watch it. Now.

[EDIT: Shawn Collins adds that a great way to get a picture of Ze's stage presence is through this YouTube video of his appearance at the TED Conference in 2004. I love the first two minutes. Gosh, it's going to be a great Summit already!]