Blogging for Business

Anne Stuart's "Technofile: Blogging for Business" on Inc. com was a great introduction to, as she termed it in when written in 2003, "The Next Big Thing". This term seems to be very popular in business and although blogs might already be here, they are certainly worthy of further discussion.

B-blogs: The Good and The Bad

Stuart uses the term "b-blog" for business blog, chalking it up to industry jargon. Either way, its less for me to type, so I'm using it too. Politics and Media are listed as already being affected by blogging voices, and corporate blogging is discussed. Postives are listed as: cheap to build, easy to maintain, not intrusive because users must click to them, and fast, informal way to share info. Negatives are blanketed under: "Do it wrong and you could embarrass yourself, bore or alienate customers or prospects, contribute to information overload, and potentially even wind up on the wrong end of a lawsuit". Stuart gives an example of a negative blogging situation by Dr. Pepper/7up Inc.

Uses for B-blogs

Similar to podcasts, b-blogs can be used both externally and internally in a corporate enviornment. Stuarts uses include: "project updates, research or test results, product-release news, industry headlines" and I'll add: meeting notes, employee or customer feedback, picture sharing. Basically blogging lends a different, informal, interactive approach to sometimes dry, standard procedures.

My favorite quote from the article reads: "At a recent business-blog conference, Jupiter Research vice president Michael Gartenberg said today's single word of advice to Dustin Hoffman's character in The Graduate wouldn't be 'plastics' but 'Weblogs'."

Hello, Mrs. Bloginson.