Blog Posts About: Weblogs and Business

The Four-Letter Word That Can Get People Excited About Your Products

Interesting to see Microsoft taking a promotional stance on weblogs in this way. This is basically a Robert Scoble interview- nothing too new, if you read Scoble.

I feel strongly that this is on-target:

Why is blogging becoming so popular?

Scoble: What's really going on is a shift in how people relate to corporate communications. Twenty years ago, the only way you could get product information was from the PR departments. Even articles in newspapers were based on press releases. Today people are getting their information from individuals within the companies. People don't trust companies, even companies they like. I mean, who would you rather get product information from, an individual from within the company, an engineer perhaps, or the company's PR department? Ernst and Young has done a study that showed that 70 percent of car sales are generated by word of mouth. Blogs bring the power of word of mouth to the Web.

Via: Anil's Daily Links

Yesterday I met my neighbor, Josh Peterson, for the first time. Josh lives around the corner, but we hadn’t taken the time to meet in person. However, I know Josh pretty well. I knew when his new baby was born; I know about his favorite web sites, his work projects and life in general. Josh and I go back a few months now.

What made this meeting interesting is the level of knowledge we had about one another’s thoughts going into the meeting. He knew me too, though we had never spoken and only shared 2 emails.

We could do this because we both use weblogs. Thanks to our weblogs, we could meet and already feel like we’re on the same page. We knew each other’s backstory. Our meeting was productive because we could cut the crap and get to the real “us�?.

Now, let’s switch gears completely. Let’s pretend I was working in a big company and meeting with a team I didn’t know instead of my neighbor. Ordinarily, I would have to walk into the meeting cold and ask questions to understand the team, the goals, the people, the accomplishments, the culture. Most of our first meeting would be devoted to understanding the team and allowing them to understand me- or making uninformed assumptions about one another. Does it have to be this way?

I don’t think it does. If the team used a simple weblog or journal on an Intranet page, they could tell their story on a day-to-day basis, in minutes. They could post what they’ve accomplished, what they’re doing, who they are, why they matter. This information would allow me and countless others in the company to be informed about them and ready to work with the context of their team culture. Much like my meeting with Josh, the weblog would make our time together more productive.

As I left Josh’s house, we agreed to be in touch. It went unsaid, but we both knew that we would be reading each other’s weblogs in the future. Just like the weblog informed me for the first meeting, our weblogs enable us to passively be aware of one another’s thoughts and observations into the future.

Does this make sense for meetings in corporations? Is there an opportunity here to make meetings between colleagues more productive by helping them be more informed prior to the meeting ? I think there could be.

Storytelling for Leaders | MarketingProfs.com

While I think that stories are best shared face-to-face, I think an easy-to-update part of a company Intranet could be a place to accumulate and manage meaningful stories.

Couldn't weblogs be used for this? They wouldn't need to even be "weblogs" by name, but just a intranet tool for easily sharing stories to the company.

Given our common longing for increased connection, coworkers, managers, and even organizations have become “extended family.�? Leaders who regularly use stories create a culture in which people feel connected with other members of the “family,�? and that gives their employees’ work purpose.

When executives and managers share tales about their own career challenges and failures, or relate how the company survived a crisis, overwhelmed employees take hope that they will also be able to tough it out. When leaders tell their teams how others have succeeded in solving difficult problems, employees gain confidence and motivation to carry on.

Via: eLearningPost

On April 26th, 2004, I won the Perfect Corporate Weblog Elevator Pitch Competition. The pitch had to be 50-160 words and convince a corporate decision maker to sponsor and resource a critical mass of weblogs in his/her organization so that their benefits can be demonstrated in a meaningful way.

THE PITCH:

First, think about the value of the Wall Street Journal to business leaders. The value it provides is context �?? the Journal allows readers to see themselves in the context of the financial world each day, which enables more informed decision making.

With this in mind, think about your company as a microcosm of the financial world. Can your employees see themselves in the context of the whole company? Would more informed decisions be made if employees and leaders had access to internal news sources?

Weblogs serve this need. By making internal websites simple to update, weblogs allow individuals and teams to maintain online journals that chronicle projects inside the company. These professional journals make it easy to produce and access internal news, providing context to the company �?? context that can profoundly affect decision making. In this way, weblogs allow employees and leaders to make more informed decisions through increasing their awareness of internal news and events.

The post I wrote the day I won is here. Or read a final reflection.

MarketingSherpa.com: Software Company President Blog Proves a Publicity & Search Optimization Bonanza(content is free until June 26, 2004)

After some prodding from the "PR guy", the president of CoreStreet, Phil Libin, created a personal weblog called VastlyImportant.com.

Libin's story isn't necessarily new these days, but the article relates some of the unexpected ways his weblog has been a successful tool for him and his company:

As he was discussing ideas in his blog with a reporter one afternoon this spring, Libin was inspired to invent a new free downloadable program to help consumers safeguard against phishing attacks...

Libin launched the program, named SpoofStick, as a hotlink in the blog only. He figured he'd get a few downloads. So far he's gotten more than 35,000 and a heap of press attention from dozens of media outlets, including USAToday and WashingtonPost.com.

I also thought it was interesting to see how his weblog contributed to being "googled" before meetings:

Libin explains, "I very often find myself going into a meeting where obviously a person intentionally Googled me five minutes before on the chance they'd find something. It's maybe 25% of the new people I meet."

Wow, 25% of the new people he meets Google him before meetings? I wonder if there is a growing demand for execs that want to able to be Googled, but don't know how? Perhaps they too should start a weblog.

Thanks to Tim Slavin for the link.

Mathemagenic: learning and KM insights - 07 June 2004

Lilia at Mathemagenic explains that the weblog world is like a city...

For me the closest metaphor is a city, a shared living space. Usually we don't know many others in our neighbourhood, but we walk on the same streets every day, see the same familiar strangers, get wet under the same rain, miss the same bus... We have a lot of context to share and meeting each other abroad we will connect easily. Living in a same city creates a sense of belonging and a sense of community.

Weblogs do as well. Of course, not for everyone (as in a city, you may not feel it). I was thinking what creates such shared context in case of weblogs. I guess it's weblog reading.

I think this is a valid point. We are all navigating the weblog world on our own terms and finding our own communities.

For me, blogging without knowing my niche and community wouldn't be nearly as rewarding. I want to make a contribution to my community and it's that pressure that makes me feel good and take time to blog. This feeling isn't that much different from the feeling I get in taking care of my front yard or speaking at a community meeting.

Lilia follows with this quote, which I'm taking directly into a project I'm working on (thanks Lilia!):

I'm getting more and more convinced that when introducing someone to blogging the most important thing is to help newcomer to start feeling rhythms of blogging cities: getting a map for an orientation, learning basic terms to find a way around, finding good guides (blogs to start reading), taking time to explore and soak...