The Case for Blogs in Business

1
The Case for Blogs in Business

• Matt Goyer Jennifer Schachter
• November 13, 2003

2
Agenda

• What is a weblog?
• How can a weblog benefit my corporation?
• What concerns must be addressed before
  implementing a weblog in my business?
• Whats the next step?

3
What is a weblog?

• Formal definition
• A weblog is a hierarchy of text, images, media
  objects and data, arranged chronologically, that
  can be viewed in an HTML browserA weblog post
  has three basic attributes title, link and
  description. All are optional.
• Dave Winer, Harvard Berkman Fellow

4
What is a weblog?

• Characteristics
• Searchable
• Distributed within an organization
• Simple
• Archived by date
• Categories
• Syndication

5
Weblog Example
6
Here to Stay

• Popularity growing
• Over 1,000,000 (Technorati)
• Over 4,000,000 (Bloglines)
• Google acquired Blogger
• AOL Journals
• Wide variety
• Political
• Presidential candidates
• Paul Martin
• Educational
• Prof. Ragde (CS251)
• Harvard
• Celebrities
• Journalists
• Even students

7
Weblogs in Corporations

• Microsoft
• Eric Rudder (Senior Vice-President)
• Chris Brumme (.net Architect)
• Robert Scoble (.net Evangelist)
• Jupitermedia
• Analyst weblogs
• Google
• Used internally
• Disney
• Used internally

8
Microsofts Robert Scoble
9
Jupiter Analyst Weblog
10
Beyond the Browser
11
Benefits

• Weblogs can benefit different aspects of your
  corporation
• Knowledge Management
• Marketing and Public Relations
• Project Management

12
Knowledge Management

• Knowledge Management
• capture and organize the knowledge contained by
  employees within a company
• Vast amounts of knowledge generated daily
• Problem How do you capture and organize this
  knowledge to make it available for employees to
  leverage in the future?

13
Knowledge Management

• Current Solutions
• Knowledge Management Systems
• Complicated and inflexible!
• Corporate Intranet
• Today employees have the intranet. It is the
  data dumpster. Everything is there but you can't
  find what you want. Much of the content is old
  and no longer relevant. What employees want is a
  current view on some topic. They want to find
  what the experts are thinking so they can
  leverage that experience. The corporate
  webblogs will become the source.
• Personal interview with John Patrick, October
  20, 2003.

14
Knowledge Management

• Better Solution Weblogs!
• A Blogger-like system is the lowest common
  denominator to putting stuff up, which may be its
  benefit.
• Evan William, the creator of Blogger

15
Knowledge Management
16
Knowledge Management

• Weblogs as a KM tool
• Information from different applications can exist
  in a single location
• Take information once limited to an individuals
  use and open it to the organization
• Easy to search
• Reduce information overload

17
Marketing PR

• Conversational Marketing
• Better feedback
• Faster access to information
• Informal language
• For one, our execs get better feedback due to
  conversational marketing efforts (er, weblogs).
  For two, our customers get better information so
  they can give even better feedback and make
  future product plans based on real information
  rather than guesses and rumors.
• Robert Scoble, Weblog

18
Marketing PR

• Brand Awareness
• If its a blatant pitch for marketing it
  wouldnt work. But if youre really giving your
  innermost thoughts and good information, people
  read it and share it, and in the end more people
  know about the company.
• Alan Meckler, Chairman of Jupitermedia Research

19
Project Management

• Traditional Project management software
• Tracks calendars, tasks, to-do lists
• Complex, expensive and inflexible
• Increasing number of companies are employing
  weblogs for project management
• A lot of people use weblogs to keep up-to-date
  on projects.
• Evan Williams (Google)

20
Project Management

• Weblog as a project management tool
• Team weblogs
• A simple means to improve communication between
  project members
• Different voices within a team can emerge
• Provides a project diary
• Single point of access for group documents, files
  and even ideas

21
Concerns

• Legal and regulatory
• Libel
• Disclosure
• Control
• Confidential information disclosed
• People can write what they want

22
Concerns

• People have been fired

23
Addressing the Concerns

• Address weblogs before they are a concern!
• Do not start them
• Might not be legally enforceable
• Company policy
• I.e. Groove Networks
• Start a conversation with employers
• I.e. Microsoft

24
Addressing Concerns at Microsoft

• Robert Scobles personal guidelines
• I always think about how I'm going to justify
  what I'm talking about to
• My wife (she'll be the first to have to explain
  it to if I get in trouble).
• My boss.
• Steve Ballmer (metaphor for executives).
• My co-workers.
• My readers.
• Every time I post, I think about these five
  groups/people. Every time I post, I think about
  Microsoft's strategy, its legal exposure, its
  place in the marketplace.

25
Getting Started

• Finding weblogs
• http//www.weblogs.com
• Google
• Tools
• Blogger
• http//www.blogger.com
• Moveable Type Typepad
• http//www.sixapart.com/
• Traction Software
• http//www.tractionsoftware.com/

26
Summary

• Weblogs can transform the way people within your
  company communicate
• Some concernseasily addressable.
• Weblogs will revolutionize the way your business
  works!

27
Communications Efficiency

• Time Spent
• 20 Phone Calls 1 Day
• 200 emails 3-4 Hours
• 50 Weblogs 40 Minutes

• Finding Information
• Phone Calls Limited to voicemail inbox
• E-mail Limited to personal e-mail, limited
  search
• Weblogs Search fast, entire corporation

• Departing Employees
• Phone Calls Lost
• E-mail Lost
• Weblogs Archived

Source John Robb
28
References

• Ashley, C. 2002. Weblogs, part II A Swiss Army
  Website?
• Bausch, P. et all. We Blog Publishing Online
  With Weblogs. John Wiley Sons, August 8, 2002.
• Fitchter, D. Blogging Software for Intranet
  Applications. Online, volume 27, issue 1
  January/February 2003.
• Olsen, S.
• Blog On. News.com October 21, 2003.
• OShea, W. New Economy The online journals known
  as Web logs are finding favor as an efficient way
  to communicate within the workplace. The New York
  Times July 7, 2003.
• Osterman, R. 2003. Firms find way to avoid
  getting blogged down. Chicago Tribune.
• Ozzie, R. 2003. Ray Ozzies Weblog.
• Personal interview with John Patrick, October 20,
  2003.
• Scoble, R. 2003. The Scobleizer Weblog.
• Suitt, H. 2003. A Blogger In Their Midst Harvard
  Business Review. Boston Sep 2003. Vol. 81, Iss.
  9
• Swartz, J. 2003. Worker blogs raise some company
  concerns. USA Today.
• Technorati http//www.technorati.com/ Accessed
  October 19, 2003
• Tepper, M. 2003. The Rise of Social Software.
  ACMs netWorker. Pages 18-23.
• Weidlich, T. 2003. The Corporate Blog Is Catching
  On. The New York Times. Page 12.
• Winer, D. 2003. What makes a weblog a weblog?
  Weblogs at Harvard.

29
Questions?