Charlie O’Donnell has a post on the spin-up challenges for his business blogging course at the Fordham business school. The post, and the referenced BusinessWeek commentary on its recent magazine issue on business blogging, reflect the challenges in explaining business blogging to those new to the subject. On the surface, blogging technology seems extremely trivial. Yet there are actually multiple technologies and cultural phenomena in play related to blogging. The measures of business blogging success also vary widely by different people’s standards. Hard to discern fact from opinion at times. In any case, the layers of the subject material make succinct yet rich tutorials on business blogging more difficult.
As a side interest and as a form of giving back to the education system, I am currently exploring development of a blogging mini-course in conjunction with one of the business schools. Would like to explore more b-schools if I can find the time and proper entry point, partners, and twist for other universities. I just despise all of the recent press about business schools falling behind so I want to help. In my wildest fantasy, I would like to tie hypothetical blogging courses to helping non-profits through marshalling the skills and energy of business school students. So far for the school I’m working on the blogging mini-course idea has gotten a warm reception by key student body liason and university staff. Most b-schools are either well into their second semester or last quarter, however. This poses some tactical timing issues for introducing the subject matter and keeping the momentum going.
Steve, thanks for the commentary. As a piece of advice, try doing such a course on a smaller platform first, like the “mini-course” that Fordham has me doing, before you build it out into a full blown full credit monster. You’ll learn a lot about the challenges and I think you’ll learn a bit about how the MBA educated mind evaluates something like blogging.