Archive for December, 2004

Author’s Note: This post is mainly designed to jot down thoughts, not to be contradictory. If it sounds contradictory, my apologies.

I never thought I’d say that the blogosphere was thinking to narrowly. I mean, if anything we’re a community with wanderlust and an inability to stay on topic.

But, for some reason, we’ve been on the topic of business blogging and how good / bad / evil / great / here to stay / not gonna happen kind of thing it is.

Such distinguished people as Tim Bray and Scott Rosenberg have even chimed in practically tolling the death bell.

Okay, maybe that’s a bit strong.

Here, typically, is how blogs are defined in these discussions:

- “Open conversations” - “Public Relations tools” - “Search Engine helpers”

Tim Bray covers this a little bit here:

A few of the organizations I’m talking to plan to start with trials of internal blogs, and go external depending on how that works out. ¶

I don’t think it’s going to work. Outward- and inward-facing blogs are such different animals that I don’t think lessons from the one are going to be much help in understanding the other. Obviously, the risks are higher in going external; if experience to date is any guide, the benefits are higher too; a lot higher.

I don’t want to diss internal blogs, but in the big picture, it seems that their impact level is not even close to the outward-facing kind. So I think the only way to find out what having external blogs is like is to have external blogs.

The problem, I think, is that when the only reason to have internal blogs is to test-run external blogs, there is obviously little value. However, internal blogs should (ideally) have a different purpose.

I’m getting ahead of myself.

Here are some uses for blogs I can think of which are a bit “different” and less about the individual writer and more about the idea, the content and driving the idea forward.

- Large company uses a blog to announce new projects that teams are doing, giving other teams an opportunity to call Posting Team and see if there is an opportunity to cross sell. Have a group that’s installing elevators in a mall? Why not give the Building Security team a chance to cross-sell their wares at the same time? - Knowledge based financial company pays a company to maintain an internal “newspaper” of what is happening in the industry, what is happening at each of the financial services company’s clients, etc. Thus providing a one-stop source for information. - Image-based company starts a blog covering all aspects of what is happening in the industry, even though the company is “sponsoring” the blog. And, even though the company is sponsoring the blog, all info about the industry goes on the blog – positive and negative (even towards the company). - A services company with millions of users – users who are ultimately merchants themselves sets up blogs to for merchants to have regular communication with past clients. - An entertainment company launching a new product sets up blogs for its “characters” 2 years in advance of production to wet the appetite of the public and play with new ideas.

This is just off the top of my head. None of this is “cluetrain” “open conversations” or transparency type stuff. None of this is Jonathan Schwartz / Robert Scoble style “talk about the industry”. None of this is like Marc Cuban talking about his games / team / league and getting flack for it. And none of it is individual bloggers. It’s more like how Monster and Google are doing their blogs.

Blogs are, to me, a medium. And that medium doesn’t define the content. There are so many things you can do in a blog format from a newspaper to communications to PR… You can make money with blogs, you can bring in value with blogs, you can establish exclusive relationships with clients with blogs…

The medium doesn’t define the message. Just like there are a million things you can do in a “magazine” format, so too with blogs. Companies have magazines for external consumption, for internal knowledge, for buzz…

I know one Canadian telecom company that spends 15M$/year simply on keeping employees informed. They have a whole department which produces magazines, TV shows, websites, newsletters. It’s a whole marketing / PR thing for internal use. Blogs would make a lot of sense in augmenting that offering for them.

I’m sure I’m rambling here, so I’ll stop, but the single greatest thing that will kill “business blogging” isn’t businesses trying it, businesses not making money, businesses not understanding blogs…

It’s bloggers not understanding the myriad of uses blogs can be used for, and how each of those can help companies.

The more we look at this as “here’s what I do on my blog, how does this apply to companies” the less value there will be.

To me, businesses blogging is about finding potential value, laying a baseline for that value and periodically checking if that value is being provided. If it isn’t, can the blog – just like I’d hope you’d do with any project.

All of that said, when you DO define blogging narrowly, yes, few companies are going to do it and even fewer are going to get it right. But when you look at blogs simply as a tool… Well, the propensity to get it wrong is inversely proportionate to the amount of proper planning and project management companies are willing to do.

If you don’t think, you sink. Blogging or not.

As I didn’t mention earlier, I’m starting a new venture, a blog consulting / production company.

The plans are still a little sketchy, however by tomorrow we need to pick a name. Who’s the “we”? Myself and Darren Barefoot.

The two names on the table are:

• BlogFathers
• InsideBlogging

We were looking for something cutting edge, trendy, fun, etc. We’ll be having a logo designed in the next week by DesignOutpost once we’ve chosen a name.

Let us know what you think.

Here’s Darren’s writeup (why is it that whenever Darren talks I feel slightly less intelligent? ;-)):

Jeremy Wright and I are kicking around the idea of starting a blog consulting and production company. The amount of interest around his auction (and the, uh, meagre interest around mine) indicates that there’s a market for this type of company. We’re planning on targeting medium to large organizations. Today, we brainstormed on some names. We think it’s important, in light of the newness of the marketplace, that the name include the term ‘blog’ or ‘weblog’.