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July 28, 2005
H&K Emergency Response / Crisis Blog
Hill & Knowlton provides a great case study on how blogs can be used in a time of crisis. Niall Cook’s account of the blog Hill & Knowlton’s London office created during the terrorists attacks points out how quickly and effectively a blog can be launched and used in a time of crisis.
First saw this post here.
Posted by kpoor at 08:47 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
July 27, 2005
Forbes: Blogs that matter
Forbes has published a nice list of blogs that matter on the Best of the Web pages on their Web site.
Some of the categories:
Marketing blogs
Media blogs
Career blogs
Art blogs
Medical blogs
I first discovered this list at the whatsnextblog.
Posted by kpoor at 09:33 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
July 25, 2005
Executive bloggers on why they blog
The July 25th issue of U.S. News & World Report has a excellent article on executive blogging called Blogging Bosses.
Below are some highlights of the article that I found compelling:
What's driving these busy executives to carve hours out of their busy week to cast their views into the sometimes hostile world of Web logs? Partly it's the appeal of a bully pulpit to promote their views, unfiltered by the media. Partly it's the desire to create a new kind of dialogue with customers, industry observers, and employees. And partly it's the hope of crafting a more human face and voice for the company.
Blogs also appeal to senior executives seeking to create a dialogue with readers. Most blogs allow users to post their own comments, offering feedback that doesn't exist with press releases or other communications. "It helps you fine-tune how you're going to use your messages," says Boeing's Baseler. "If we say it this way, do people understand, or will they look at us glassy-eyed? It gives you an idea how to shape your other communications."
Based on comments posted to their blogs, most executive bloggers conclude their audience is a mix of industry insiders--customers, industry analysts, journalists, employees, and competitors.
It's a safe bet that employees are perusing their boss's online entries. And that can make blogs a valuable management tool.
Promoting a new sense of openness--whether with employees, customers, or the public--is one of the most important things that blogs can accomplish in this age of mistrust.
Corporate executives mentioned in the article include:
Randy Baseler,Vice President of Marketing, Boeing Commercial Airplanes: boeing.com/randy
Bob Lutz, Vice Chairman, General Motors: fastlane.gmblogs.com
Carole Brown, Chair, Chicago Transit Authority: ctachair.blogspot.com
Rich Marcello, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Business-Critical Servers, Hewlett-Packard: hp.com/blogs/marcello
Thanks to NevOn where I first saw this article.
Posted by kpoor at 10:13 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
July 22, 2005
Talking Blogs, RSS and Podcasting without using the words
A recent post on Adverblog struck a chord with me. It points to a study from the Pew Internet and American Life Project that shows a high percentage of internet users still do not understand the terms blogs, RSS, podcast etc. While those of us who use these technologies all day everyday might find this hard to believe, it doesn't change the fact that this study shows we are in the minority.
In terms of discussing these technologies with clients (and coworkers), I find that many have grown tired of terms blogs and RSS before they've even taken the time to understand them as communications tools.
One approach that I've found helpful in explaining how these technologies work is to not actually mention them upfront. I've found the talking about the next evolution of the internet, one that revolves around a publish and subscribe model, seems to resonate better.
While people may not understand RSS, they understand that there are billions of web pages and that a system that allows web users to pick the content they want and have it delivered to them makes sense. Clients can understand that they should provide content the way customers want to receive it. Now the conversation has backed into RSS and RSS aggregators.
While I'm not letting anyone off the hook for not being up on these technologies, a "non-jargony" approach to talking about them may sometimes be a more effective way to sell the idea.
Posted by kpoor at 09:56 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
July 19, 2005
RSS great for corporate communications
Red Herring magazine has a cool feature article about RSS as a corporate communications tool. One quote from the article:
...enterprises are starting to realize that the strengths of RSS are great fits for the corporate environment. Email, web browsers, and databases often fall short when an enterprise wants to send a message to hundreds of thousands of global employees, to measure buzz about its products, to filter industry news for relevancy, or to synchronize employee’s web needs between work, home, and travel use.
At Dix & Eaton we are currently exploring how we can use RSS and services such as Newsgator to share information and this article provides a lot of food for thought.
Thanks to NevOn for pointing me to the article.
Posted by kpoor at 04:46 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
July 18, 2005
Political blogger aggravates Mayor - hides behind anonymity
The Cleveland Mayoral race has provided an interesting case study on the power of blogs. An anonymous blogger in Cleveland maintains the Cleveland Mayor Race - 2005 blog. The blog takes a very firm stance against the current Mayor who is running for re-election, repeatedly accusing her and her administration of corruption and lies. The blog also clearly endorses one of the other candidates in the race.
The accusations and tone of the blog, combined with its growing readership, recently caused the Mayor to go on a local news program and defend her administration against what she called "wild accusations" by the blogger.
While this situation clearly shows how influential blogs have become, it also, in my opinion, represents an example of someone not playing a fair game. The author of this blog remains anonymous. Considering the severity of the accusations - the fact that this person repeatedly attacks a public official personally and professionally but refuses to own up to the allegations is the equivalent of continued sucker punching.
If you want to use a blog to take a stand, do it. If you want to challenge the Mayor's policies and track record, fine, that's what free speech is all about. But do not attack someone on a personal level and hide behind anonymity. While I realize anonymous blogs are not uncommon in the political arena, they would be much more credible if the authors put a little skin in the game.
Posted by kpoor at 11:03 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
July 14, 2005
Basic rules for corporate blogging
We've all seen versions of these rules before, but for companies thinking about blogging, I think the basic rules fro success set forth by Axe Senior Brand Development Manager David Rubin at a recent ad:tech panel provide excellent guidelines:
* they need to be authentic
* speak in a non-corporate voice
* be published regularly and
* be able to accept negative comments on the brand
These rules for a successful blog can also be seen as a litmus test as a company considers blogging. If you are not ready to commit to the rules, you may not want to start blogging.
First saw this on Adrants.
Posted by kpoor at 08:43 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
July 11, 2005
Top 10 Downloads
Not a normal topic for this blog but I thought it was interesting to read CNET's list of top 10 downloads of the last 10 years. Personally, I've downloaded 9 of them, several numerous times. I've yet to Skype but I'm sure my time is coming.
Posted by kpoor at 03:24 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Thinking of Podcasting?
The ipodlounge has an article titled The Beginner's Guide to Podcast Creation which does a nice job of discussing the gear, software and basics of how to publish a podcast feed.
The best thing about the post is that it shows how simple and cheap it really is to start podcasting. For companies, it shows that it doesn't take a large investment to at least experiment with this new medium to see if it is right for the organization.
Posted by kpoor at 02:59 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
July 08, 2005
Things to do with RSS
Tim Yang posts 15 different ways to use RSS. Uses range from business to personal. Even cooler than his original post is the wiki version which has allowed others to expand the list, which is now much larger.
This is a great resource to learn of the numerous possibilities that RSS provides.
Posted by kpoor at 10:21 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
July 06, 2005
NY Times: Marketers see opportunity in RSS
An article in the NY Times discusses the appeal of RSS to marketers. Interesting outakes:
R.S.S. is somewhat like TiVo for the Internet. By letting people have content pulled from Web sites and fed to their own computers automatically, they can then store it for later viewing. The growing number of R.S.S. users has some online publishers - they are now the biggest group of suppliers of R.S.S. feeds - starting to worry that R.S.S. could take eyeballs away from their existing advertisements on the Web.
Visitors to nytimes.com via R.S.S. feeds has soared from about 500,000 a month at the end of 2003, to 7.3 million last April.
R.S.S. may be getting bigger soon. Microsoft has announced that R.S.S. - the abbreviation stands for Really Simple Syndication - will be integrated into its next Windows operating system. Microsoft's announcement makes it more likely that R.S.S., used for years only by the tech-savvy, will become more of a mainstream computer tool.
The washingtonpost.com, part of Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive, for example, is considering ways to insert ads into its R.S.S. feeds, which currently include only headlines and links to articles on the paper's own site. "Anytime a medium attracts a large audience, people begin to think through and figure out ways to deliver ads to that audience," said Tim Ruder, vice president of marketing for Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive. "R.S.S. won't be any different in that regard than any other medium."
This article supports the fact that companies need to understand RSS and how it is being used by their customers.
Posted by kpoor at 07:59 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
July 05, 2005
Intranets vs Wikis?
After reading a recent post on Active Voice regarding Intranets and Wikis, I was struck by the "versus" nature of the post. Intranets vs. Wikis. Both of these tools have their strengths, as the post points out, but it seems the argument is for one or the other.
I think that the best employee communications environment would be one that combines these two technologies. Content that is best suited for one to many distribution could use the traditional intranet platform while subjects and information that would benefit from group collaboration should use Wiki technology.
These, of course, should exist in a single, integrated environment. If any one works for a company or has an example of this type of solution or any other that combines traditional intranet technology with emerging tools please comment and let me know. I'd like to kepp an ongoing list of how companies are experimenting in this area.
Posted by kpoor at 01:45 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
