Blog Posts About: Weblogs and Business

Digital Web Magazine - Mena Trott

I'm always fascinated to learn more about weblogs in business, but then there is the business of weblogs, where companies like Six Apart (Who create Movable Type and TypePad) serve the growing market. This interview with Mena Trott provides an update look at the company's growth, some new features and what they are thinking about these days.

Thanks for the link Kris!

CEO Bloggers' Club

From the intro on the newish site:

The aim of this Club is to gather CEOs who believe in the blogosphere and its extraordinary potential and to offer them a place to share with other companies leaders the experimentation they are conducting thanks to weblogs. Corporate blogging, CRM, marketing, PR, internal communication, are part of the different ways blogs are being used today, but as we all know, we are only at the beginning. And who is able to say how weblogs will affect our business tomorrow?

Could be interesting to watch. The site owner is based in Europe, but it is meant to be an international resource.

Via: Nancy

A great friend from grad school and (fellow independent consultant) is thinking about starting a weblog and emailed me about the time commitment and what it takes to do it “right�?.

I told her that it really depends on what she wants to get out of it. Goals may be getting readers, higher search results, a creative outlet, new customers, relationships with other bloggers, online community participation, etc.

To add to this, I described my perspective off the top of my head in the email. I'm posting it here to share my recent thoughts onthe subject...

My goal was to get more visibility in my niche- so I write about the subjects in my niche and focus on other weblogs of people in that niche. To be successful in getting readers, it really takes more than writing. It takes being aware of what people are talking about and what value you can insert into those discussions.

It’s a new form of online community where everyone has their own place to speak up on the subjects at hand. I weave personal things into the posts. You learn that people come to your site because they like you, the person, and the more of a person you can be, the better. Once you get into it, it’s amazing how much you can learn and how your concept of “news�? changes. This is just my view... I could go on and on….

While I could probably do better, I thought this off-the-cuff description was worth sharing.

Distributed KM - Improving Knowledge Workers' Productivity and Organisational Knowledge Sharing with Weblog-based Personal Publishing (BlogTalk 2.0 Publication by Martin Röll)

This paper briefly explores the failure of traditional knowledge management to adress the problem of knowledge worker productivity and argues that a deeper understanding of knowledge work is necessary to improve it. It then explores knowledge work and how it is supported with information technology tools today, focussing specially on the email client as a knowledge work tool.

The paper introduces weblogs as personal publishing tools for knowledge workers and shows how personal publishing supports knowledg work processes, is personally beneficial to the knowledge worker and helps the dissemination of knowledge through an organisation.

Via: Mathemagenic

Mena's Corner: Barak at Six Apart

I continue to be impressed with the Six Apart folks. They really do try to practice what they preach. Mena is stepping down as CEO and the post linked above tells the story of hiring the new CEO.

Let's suppose that Six Apart gets huge, like really big. We, the users and public will have an accurate, honest and heartfelt record of what it was like to take Six Apart from a hobby to a giant, via the weblogs of Mena and Ben.

What if we could see the thoughts of Jeff Bezo and Bill Gates as they got started? Wozniak and Jobs? What if Henry Ford had a blog?

These are extreme examples- but what if?

In the future, I think we'll see the histories of companies being written day-by-day as they are built. The start-ups using weblogs today could be tomorrow's giants and their weblogs allow us, the online public, to see what's happening on the inside. We will get to know the real people behind the company and hear the story from the horse's mouth. I think the "market" will grow to value this more and more in the future.

This is not to say, of course, that this is a winning strategy for everyone. The risks are high and as the stakes grow, the "story" can quickly be corrupted by PR-style spin by those who may not "get it".

But, for those that are able to hold on to their voice and continue to tell the company's story in an honest way, I think the the real and long-term rewards could come in the form of loyal and trusting customers, which every company needs.

Micro Persuasion: Why Apple Employees Will Blog in Revolt

Steve Rubel thinks Apple is keeping employees from blogging, and it's a strategy that won't last.

For once, Apple needs to follow Microsoft's lead by quickly letting their employees blog. Corporate transparency can't be stopped. Apple, rekindle your revolutionary spirit, loosen your grip and let your employees blog - even if it's just a preemptive move. If you don't, this will only harm your brand over the long haul.

In a perfect world, you'd think that employees could blog *and* keep secrets and maintain the mystique- maybe even build on it.

Btw, I think Surfin' Safari is an Apple employee's blog.

Thanks to Anthony for the pointers.