Moderator, Jessica Lipnack, and panelists/blogger Patti Anklam, Doug Cornelius, Cesar Brea, and Bill Ives introduced a PowerPoint presentation-free discussion about what blogging brings to businesses. In a desire to immediately create community, Lipnack asked all the bloggers in the overflowing room to stand up, identify themselves, plus mention their blog. I made sure to stand up and announce my blog, The Spark Minute, while also mentioning that I was blogging for this conference.
Here’s a summary of the issues and points about blogging that were brought up:
- A blog is a personal knowledge management system. That’s your initial audience. From that it grows to people who share your interest.
- People start blogs because they’re tired of answering the same questions over and over again. It’s kind of like a personal FAQ of their knowledge, or a personal knowledge management tool. I must say that’s what I use my blog for and the point above. I’m not necessarily annoyed with questions, it’s just more efficient for me. When people bring up an issue that I’ve written about, I’ll just say, “Oh, I wrote a post about that, I’ll send it to you.”
- Blogging disciplines you to collect thoughts and write them down.
- Not everybody should blog, because feedback doesn’t come immediately, and people will get frustrated by it and quit. Just saying, “Let them try” is ok if you don’t have to use company resources to set them up and train them.
- Micro-blogging creates more relevant connections than blogging.
- Ask yourself, “What’s the business reason for writing this post” before you write.
- Who should blog? Someone who is social and likes to write.
- One person rightly complained that we were not staying on topic of the session title. “What does blogging BRING to business?”
- So 45 minutes into the conversation, Lipnack, the moderator said that blogging can make the environment appear as a much more accessible place to work. It’s a culture change.
- Regarding what does “blogging” mean to business, it shouldn’t be isolated to just blogging. It’s just a tool or vehicle. You have to find out what communications mechanism is right for your environment and objective. Blogs just happen to be a very versatile platform.
- Argument against, “Who’s going to pay for their time to write the blog?”
- What is it in their daily work that they need to be communicating? What are they doing now and how can they do it in a blog?
- Fastest way to get your business to come around is to show the competition is doing it.
- A voice doesn’t necessarily mean you have to have a blog. Don’t get hooked on the term blog. The point is to engage and have channels and avenues for staff to express themselves in the way they like. Could be a discussion board, Twitter, or a full fledged company social networking tool.
- It develops an initial level of trust before you actually meet a person. Because you’re judged first on the words you write.
- A blog lets you prove your expertise. Claiming expertise without it today can be difficult.
More coverage of this session at the Internet Evolution blog.
Make sure you check out the summary of all coverage from the Enterprise 2.0 Conference 2008 in Boston.
This post is cross-posted from the Enterprise 2.0 Blog.
