I devote a whole chapter to confronting fear of blogging in The Corporate Blogging Book. Anil Dash makes quick work of the topic with several salient points:
- Blogs are an established technology
- Blogs work with other technology, including email and your website
- A blog can be used anywhere that tools like email and IM are: Inside or outside the company, in one location or around the world.
- There [are] no set rules about how to have a blog. You can start small, with a lot of control over content and community, and expand over time — don’t jump in with both feet if you’re not ready.
His comments are directed at what he calls “normal business people.” Which is an important distinction. Those who read this blog and others that cover the topic of “corporate blogging” may already be convinced that blogs are a new must-use communications channel. But there are lots of folks just beginning to think about this.
As you say, Dash makes quick work of the topic. I think it’s worth more consideration than his brief post provides. And I see room for some helpful distinctions between different types of businesses or industries and different sizes of business. I know that people who promote blogs make a lot of generalized observations about blogs and business and I’m no exception. But now I’m starting to wonder where the research is, if it exists, or where and how it might usefully be conducted, to give us – and the business people we speak to – more confidence about blogging as not just a safe business activity but an activity with good prospects of return on investment, of time especially, as well as of money across all – or specified – sectors, types and sizes of business. The research results I’ve seen so far seem to be mainly about big corporations than about the very small business end of the spectrum or about what in Europe and some other parts of the world are called micro businesses – the ‘mom and pop’ businesses Dash mentions, for example, or solo professional businesses. There may be such research and if so I’d love to know where to access it.
Comment by Des Walsh — April 14, 2006 @ 1:51 am
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beautiful Oestern still Manuel
Comment by Manuel — April 15, 2006 @ 2:47 pm