Category: Corporate Blogging

Posted on

Wharton Professors Weigh In On Blogging

From the Knowledge@Wharton site on blogging (bold emphasis added by me):

"At its most basic level, it’s a technology that is lowering the cost
of publishing" and turning out to be "the next extension of the web,"
says Wharton legal studies professor Kevin Werbach.
"Blogging is still in its early days. It’s analogous to where the web
was in 1995 and 1996. It’s not clear how it will turn out."

What is clear is that opportunities for blogging abound.
Companies can use bloggers to put a more human face on interactions
with employees and customers; marketers can create buzz through blogs;
and bloggers can act as fact checkers for the mainstream media. There
are dozens of applications for blogs, Werbach notes, and many that
haven’t even been conceived yet … "Blogging is really driven by interest and desires, not
commercial activity," says Wharton marketing professor Peter Fader. "It’s rare to see something take off like this when commercial prospects are so minimal. People just want to share ideas."

… Werbach predicts that multiple business models will emerge. Individuals
ages 18-25 are spending more of their time online, and marketers need
to reach them. That means blogging could become a way to target the
most coveted audience for media.

If that isn’t an attractor for experimentation and innovation, I don’t know what would be. Read the whole Wharton article here.

Posted on

Top Business School To Put MBAs Through Blogging Bootcamp

The Michigan Business School has a very cool, innovative project course aimed at helping a small enterprise increase Internet visibility through blogging (no more calling MBAs a bunch of blaggards!). Bud Gibson at The Community Engine posts:

In a nutshell, our plan is to divide the students up into five or six
teams of five people. Then the fun starts. Each team blogs about the
industry the company is in. They learn who the blog opinion leaders are
for that industry. They learn how to track the company’s products and
competitors in the blogosphere using tools like technorati, pubsub, del.icio.us, and flickr
tags. They’re graded on making effective blog posts with a portion of
the grade being decided based on getting themselves noticed and cited
by opinion leaders. The blogging efforts will be completely open for
all to see, so competition will be based on how well the team does its
research, networks, and crafts its message.

I would imagine that for a project that spans only a few months that the results could be overly sensitive to the amount of offline networking that the MBAs do, perhaps tending to make things a bit of a free-for-all. Perhaps to control for things on the downside, the competition should also be based on whether any backlash occurs. This is something that the MBA would have to live with if they were a permanent employee of the client company. Visibility is a nice goal, but perhaps not the only goal. In any case, Michigan sounds like it has ingredients for an awesome course. Will be great to hear how this goes.

Posted on

Free Version of Software For Small Blogging Communities

According to Stefan Wiskemann, 21Publish will introduce a free version of its software for small blogging communities.

Although the details of the pricing plan and the version of the software have not been announced yet, the currently available 21Publish platform has a number of unique
features ranging from secure intranet, comment tracking
(unique for those that post comments across blogs), and an administrative "workbench" covering all bloggers
within the community. As a number of readers have enjoyed my post about the value of MBAs working with non-profits, perhaps this will serve as a good opportunity for non-profits.

In the interest of disclosure, I am a consultant to 21Publish.

Steve Shu

Posted on

BlogKits – Advertising Matchmaking for Blogs

Found BlogKits via Anita Campbell at her Small Business Trends blog. According to the BlogKits site:

The BlogKits BlogMatchTM Network is an opportunity for anyone who owns a blog to be matched with businesses, marketers and/or advertisers looking to partner with niche-filled, content specific, quality blogs.

Have little clue what the deal structure with BlogKits is like. Perhaps I will explore.

Regarding advertising, I’ve personally stayed away from Google AdSense on my personal blog because I imagined it would be hard for me to control what would pop up in front of users (note BlogKits would provide an alternative option). When I first started blogging, my initial objections were that I might have competitive management consulting firms popping up on my site. That concern has since diffused because as an independent consultant, I find I rarely cross paths with the larger firms except when dealing with the $200 million+ revenue firms. I also look to establish longer-term trust relationships that would tend to steer me clear of competitive kinds of situations. Even then, I have held the belief that my flavor of consulting is unique – I appeal to types looking for a versatile right-hand man and trusted mercenary (for lack of better words).

Anyhow, I ended up writing a bit of a long-winded post when I simply wanted to introduce a new option for folks that are trying to monetize their readership. If people have thoughts, I’d be happy to hear them.

Steve Shu

Don’t forget to subscribe to Steve Shu’s blog now (click icon)!

Posted on

Cartoon Characters Blogging in the Corporate World

I’m always so serious about stuff, especially when it comes to business. I’ve made some comments about CEOs blogging, trench workers blogging, and hybrid models. Completely forgot the aspect of cartoon characters blogging for corporations. Steve Rubel and his readership points me to GEICO’s Gecko blog and Captain Morgan’s blog (Now there’s a way to circumvent all of the corporate policy legal stuff … blame things on a cartoon character when things don’t go well!).

So in the cartoon spirit, I just thought I’d share how I feel when I mess up a blog post or comment and can’t retract … (click here). (Source: Netdisaster). Hat tip: Suzanne.

Steve Shu

Don’t forget to subscribe to Steve Shu’s blog now (click icon)!

Posted on

PR and Brand Consulting Firms Make First Moves as Thought Leaders in Corporate Blogging

It’s one thing to speculate about how corporate blogging is going to pick up. It’s another thing to see what the market is actually doing. Traditional management consultants sometimes call the latter "watching for markers" as to how an industry is going to shape up. From my viewpoint, the PR and brand consulting firms look to be the first movers (relative to 3rd party service firms) in evangelizing corporate blogging, even though these areas are not the only involved parties in a blogging equation. Steve Rubel’s post here and Jennifer Rice’s post here are both good examples of actual moves to go out on the road to pitch clients and out on the web to educate prospects. I’ve indicated that the core mass of the consulting industry may not be making any moves yet on corporate blogging, even though corporations are starting to ramp up use. It is also useful to note that one of the primary authors of the expected blockbuster book on corporate blogging is Shel Israel, a PR consultant. Shel is writing the book with uber blogger Robert Scoble.

Steve Shu

Don’t forget to subscribe to Steve Shu’s blog now (click icon)!

Posted on

Good Post on the Structure of Corporate Blogging

Provocative post by Steve Rubel on whether a company should blog from top down, bottom up, or use hybrid approach. It was a topic that I had planned on covering in a prior book opportunity. I may comment more on the structure of corporate blogging after Easter. I think it is probably also important to consider the legal aspects of risk management. One recent, useful corporate policy to look at is here.

Steve Shu

Don’t forget to subscribe to Steve Shu’s blog now (click icon)!

Update (3/29/05): Version #2 of the corporate policy I mentioned before is up here.

Posted on

Hooking Friends on Business and Corporate Blogging

Last week was personally a big week for me in terms of hooking personal contacts on business and corporate blogging. I had about six discussions last week. Five of the people hold MBAs. All of them hold either engineering degrees or science degrees as well. Here’s the gist of the key points (the sentences are mine as I’m just capturing the spirit of what was said):

  • Your blog may have been the first I’ve ever visited
  • He is now hooked on blogging, the GM blogs, etc.
  • I’m thinking of starting 3-4 blogs, what platform do you recommend
  • Guest authoring seems like a good way to start
  • There’s so much political junk around, thanks for introducing me to venture capital blogs and some of the corporate blogs
  • There is an impressive amount of information out there on these business blogs. I never knew they existed.

In the end, I expect that only 1-3 of these people will actually get hooked in the next month, but heck it’s a contribution!

Anyway, here’s another consolidated launching point for looking at corporate blogging. It’s a wiki, and it’s located here.

Update (3/20/05): I should also mention that I am a resident blogger for the Sand Hill Group and The CIO Weblog. In the interest of disclosure, I handle some sponsored blogging by HDI and Citrix at The CIO Weblog. I am also under contract to generate marketing collateral (e.g., technology whitepapers and not blogging) with a software vendor in the blogging space that may be disclosed at a later date under mutual agreement with my client.

Proudly powered by WordPress