Jennifer Rice

Sucking up

Guy Kawasaki thinks that sucking up to bloggers is a great idea. Om Malik and Michael Arrington disagree.

I say, "bring it on." But only if you follow Guy's rule #1: have a great product to sell.

I was recently sent a pair of shoes from Royal Elastics (actually, I was invited to pick a pair from their web site -- even better). The first pair was a bit too tight, so I received the next size up. Perfect. Here are my new shoes:

No ties, great for airport travel. And they're quite stylish for tennis shoes.  I'll be wearing them a lot. And the best thing is, I wasn't asked to blog about the shoes; they were a no-expectation gift. 

So this is the next evolution of BzzAgent, but infinitely more risky for companies. Blogging is all about authenticity. If a blogger doesn't like what you send them, watch out. The nice ones will simply say nothing on their web site. Others will be publicly honest. But if you've got a good product, you'll get oodles of free publicity.

Part of me doesn't like getting put on the spot. But another part of me loves the fact that companies are willing to put their reputations at stake by sending products to people who speak their mind to thousands -- if not millions -- of people.

I will say, though, I hate getting press releases. I received two from the same company that were just plain bad, and I really wanted to make a public example out of them. Lucky for them, my computer crashed and I lost the emails.  If you're going to send me a press release, send it directly to my email address with a brief , intelligent comment on why I should care about this topic. It should demonstrate that the PR person has read my blog and has a pretty good idea whether or not I'd find it interesting. Sadly, few actually do this, and they all end up in my spam folder.

Bloggers, what do you like to receive? What do you hate to receive?

Ad blog battle

This is cool... I managed to make it into the Battle of the Ad Blogs even though my blog has been rather dark lately. Of course, it's way down at the bottom in the "other" category, but hey, I can't complain. If you like what you read, I'd love to win one of these. Always a nominee, never a winner... boo hoo... :-)  I promise to post some really, really interesting content very soon!

Blog welcome & thoughts

Everyone say hi to new branding blogger Mark True. To paraphrase his first post, "does the world really need another branding blog?" In his case, I think so. He wrote a really insightful comment on one of my recent posts and I clicked through to see what he was all about. Only a week's worth of posts up right now, but I found some smart, well-written stuff.

For those of you who are looking to promote your blog, follow Mark's example. Write something really smart on a like-minded blog. If they like your comment, they'll click through and read more. Blogging is the perfect real-world example of how branding and marketing works: it's not about promotion, it's about the experience. If you offer a smart, insightful blog that's well-written, people will come. If you're promoting and people aren't coming, then you're either 1) pissing them off with your email promotions, and/or 2) you're not writing what people want to read. Or you're not writing well enough and your posts are difficult to read.

Unfortunately there are people out there who would make it seem like blogging is easy. Sure it is, unless you actually want someone to read it. Then it's hard. It's why I don't post very often; it takes a lot of time to sit down and think of something smart to say, organize your thoughts, write it well, edit it so it's readable, add the links and post. This is not a 15-minute exercise.

Last comment: I think it's a fallacy that "you must post at least 3 times per week." If you're a news-oriented blog, it's a must. But if you're writing original content that people want to read, write when you're inspired. People won't abandon you; that's the beauty of RSS. But when you're first starting out, you do need to populate your blog with enough content that people want to subscribe. And it takes time to post smart comments on other people's blog to get noticed in the first place. You can start easing up when you've got enough inbound links to get the Google Juice flowing.

Reinvention

After 18 months of writing about branding and marketing, I hit the point of burn-out. So I'm making some changes that I hope will keep me interested and engaged in the blogosphere. I was inspired by a couple posts:

Jack/Zen: The Zen aesthetic has always been known for its simplicity - Zen gardens, poetry, and the like. It's communicating the essence, no more or less.

The question about creating simplicity in our life spaces, life styles, relationships, and work is the question: What is the essence of my life?

And therefore, what, if I took it away, would also take away a part of this essence? And what, if I kept it or added it to my life, would be unnecessary for this essence?

And from Evelyn Rodriguez:

...blogs are like places for me. Places for people. What is the place like? What types of people would hang out there? (Nope, not demographics, perhaps ethnographics work here.) For instance, I picture this blog as a salon, or an artist's colony...

As I ponder my withdrawal from blogging, I arrive at two conclusions:
1. Blogging hasn't been simple. Keeping up with all the information and ideas, getting inspiration to write the 'mandatory' 3x per week posts, rejecting people who asked to be included on my blogroll and feeling badly about it.... It became overwhelming.

2. If my blog is my salon, it should represent me... and it hasn't. Although I've tossed in my token "non-business" posts, my blog has felt decidedly one-dimensional. I don't know if I'd hang out in my own salon!

So I'm going to break some rules.

First, I'm not going to have a blogroll. I'll maintain a list of <10 links to blogs that I feel represent what's important to me, mainly on the business front (since this is mainly a business blog, of course). The people on my list have passion, occasionally challenge my thinking, and inspire me to see things differently. Or their philosophies agree with mine, so I feel smart. :-) Almost all of them I've met in person, and there's a depth to them that I appreciate. It was incredibly difficult to cut 40 links down to 8. Many of the blogs I cut I'll still read. Many of them I count as my friends. But in the name of simplicity and my sanity, I just have to take this step. Please accept my apologies if you're one of the blogs that I cut. I will continue to read blogs and link to/comment on interesting posts; IMO, that's more valuable than being buried in a list of links.

Second, I'm breaking my own rule and removing the stuffy business photo from my blog. It's been replaced (and will continue to change) to reflect more of my personality. I like to laugh and have fun! And if we're not having fun in our business, we should all take our marbles and go home.

Third, I'm probably not going to post every day... or even 3x per week. The beauty of RSS  is that I don't have to make a "sticky" site. When I'm inspired to write, it will show up in your reader.

Fourth, I'm going to expand my writing to reflect my diverse interests. I will stick to branding as the core of my writing, because my blog continues to be my best new-business tool. Yet I've been too focused on other's brands at the expense of my own. Every good brand is consistent yet multidimensional. My company brand is myself. So I'm going to risk being politically incorrect and say some things that may cause potential clients to wrinkle their foreheads... but I'm not going to worry about it. I think that's the beauty of Hugh McLeod's blog; he's quite unapologetically himself. And it certainly hasn't hurt him.

Last thought: I really like Jack/Zen's quote, What is the essence of my life? I make it a point to reinvent myself every couple years... when I feel that small nudge in my soul that hints, "hey, sluggard... it's time to move. Explore. Grow. Reinvent. There's an uncharted vastness yet to be tasted." I'm in one of those transitional phases now where I'm asking myself, "Who am I? What is the essence of my life? And where do I go from here?" Evelyn's blog inspires me because she doesn't hesitate to document her soul growth. I've always kept it to myself, and yet it's such a gift to witness another's willful blossoming. So perhaps I'll begin charting my own new direction on these very public pages. And hopefully, I'll renew my engagement with this community called the blogosphere.

Blog depression

OK, I finally got motivated to post... about why I'm not posting. Here's a very entertaining look at Blog Depression, a Public Service Pamphlet.

There is a growing epidemic in the cyberworld. a scourge which causes more suffering with each passing day. as blogging has exploded and, under the stewardship of the veterans, the form has matured more and more bloggers are finding themselves disillusioned, dissatisfied, taking long breaks, and in many cases simply closing up shop. this debilitating scourge ebbs and flows but there is hardly a blogger among us who has not felt it’s dark touch. we’re speaking, of course, about blog depression.

One of the symptoms I thought was pretty funny (and appropriate for me) is Content Anxiety.

If the simple act of reading a magazine fills you with a deep sense of disquiet, if you break out in hives, or if you find yourself inexplicably weeping, it may be Content Anxiety, in which you subliminally equate every piece of information as a potential piece of blog content.

Thank goodness, I'm not alone! And now that I've actually overcome my resistance to writing my first blog post in a month, I realize that it's not as bad as I'd expected.  I may actually start blogging again; wonder of wonders.

Hammers, cont'd

I've gotten a couple comments and emails on my last post that I want to address. The first one is,

"There seems to be a built-in assumption in your article that "blog consultants" are just implementers. "

Good blog consultants are definitely more than just implementers. They strategize and help companies figure out how blogs can best be used for their business. But given the problem of "how can group A communicate better with group B", blog consultants will generally come up with blogs as a solution. Community experts will recommend an online forum as a solution. Ditto with a wiki expert, a social networking expert, and the future experts in whatever new nifty tool comes along. Ad agencies provide strategic services, but -- what do you know -- recommend an ad campaign as a solution. Online marketing firms will recommend online strategies as a solution. Hint: if the name of the tool is in the description, then you're going to get that tool recommended as the best solution to your problem.

I'm not bashing experts. We need people out there who deeply understand the tools and how to use them. My personal role in this emerging grassroots ecosystem (and a couple others I know like Jerry Michalski) is to

• be familiar with all the tools available,
• fully understand the specific challenges that the company needs to be addressed,
• consult on big-picture culture shifts that need to happen before applying any technological solution,
• bring new ideas to the table, and 
• recommend the most appropriate tools and experts for the job.

If blogs happen to be the right solution, I'll recommend a blog consultant like InsideBlogging or Debbie Weil. If a community forum appears to be the best solution, I may recommend an expert like Jake or a vendor like Informative. Ditto for marketing… even with my agency background, I'm quite likely to tell a client to cut the ad budget and focus dollars on loyalty and referral programs. I consider myself a "tool-agnostic" strategic resource. Hey, everyone's got their niche.

Next comment is:

"Consultants like you will do well to answer questions like "How do I start testing hammers safely in my company?"

Assuming you are already familiar with all the tools available and have decided that blogs make sense for your business, your best bet is to go directly to a blog consultant. Or, for those people who participated in Brand Humanity seminars, I'm compiling the best wisdom I can find from the experts and passing it along on a monthly basis (or more frequently, depending on what's happening). And, of course, offering thoughts of my own. Within the next 30 days I'll be launching an education platform that will feature a number of gurus in this social tech space; more on that later.

And now that I've written this post, I really need to recategorize all the posts in the "weblog" category to "multiloguing." I've been procrastinating.

It's not about the hammer

I just rediscovered this post that I wrote 2 weeks ago, marked as "draft." Time to post.

------------
Two guys sit down at a bar and start talking. One says to the other, "Hey, do you know how much hammers cost, and where I can buy one?" The other guy responds, "I dunno. I hear that a lot of people have hammers these days. What do you need it for?" "Well, I'm not really sure. I just keep reading about hammers, people tell me I need a hammer, and sales of hammers are going through the roof."

Pretty silly, huh?

Johnnie's got a post on 4/17 called "Making Money on Cheap Tools." A lot of people are selling hammers -- oops, I mean blogs. Carat is selling blog starter kits to their clients.  The question that appears to be zooming through the blogosphere is how much people can charge for hammers blogs.

Smart companies shouldn't spend a penny on a blog starter kit or blog consultant. Not until they understand whether a blog is the right tool to meet their needs. Why buy a hammer when you have a plumbing problem? Better to find someone who can sell you a wrench.

A blog is a tool. So is a wiki or discussion forum.  So is a face-to-face meeting or a conference call. And I've recently seen some very interesting tools that are in beta. The core issue is this: What conversations need to be happening inside and outside of your company? What is the cost to the company if these conversations don't happen? What are the cultural and organizational issues that prevent these conversations from taking place? How can we begin implementing conversation tools to facilitate those conversations? And finally, lastly, what are the right conversation tools for your business?

Blog consultants, designers and writers are wonderful resources in the executional phase. But there's usually a lot of work to be done before it makes sense to bring them into the picture. If you're building a home, do you go hire yourself a framer? Or a roofer? No, you start with an architect, then a contractor. I don't help companies build blogs... I can refer them to a blog specialist who can. But not until I ask a bunch of questions about what purpose it needs to serve. Just because blogs have hit the big time doesn't mean they're right for every situation.  So don't worry about answering "how much" until you've answered some "who," "what" and "why"questions.

 

Countdown to next webinar

It's this Friday, noon to 1:30 CST. The webinar is designed to give an overview of social technologies in business, and should be of interest to anyone trying to start (or get approval on) corporate blogs, customer communities, etc.  One of the last participants wrote a very kind review on her blog:

...(it) generated a lot of ideas and left me wanting to run down the hall to our owner's office with the revelations of all the wonderful things blogging could do for us.  And I mean now! 

Signing up for the webinar not only includes the webinar itself, but follow up from Jennifer with a great deal of information.  And honestly?  The webinar itself was worth the cost to me.  My expectations have been exceeded.   I got more out of it than I thought I would. (And I had fairly high expectations.)  And I look forward to the next one.

To sign up, click here. Agenda is as follows:

- The societal trends that are fueling the exponential growth of blogs

- The impact of the "blogosphere" on your business, and how to monitor and join the customer conversation that’s already happening

- The various types of social technologies such as blogs, wikis and forums, and the six ways in which they’re being used (including internal usage)

- How social technologies fill the gaps in your current marketing mix

- Culture shifts such as transparency and co-creation that accompany the ‘open business’ trend

        - Guidelines for creating and maintaining corporate blogs

Please join us!

Multiloguing

So if a monologue is one person talking, and dialogue is two people talking, what's a multilogue?

I've been thinking about the societal and psychological reasons for the emergence of blogs, wikis and the like. Markets are conversations, etc etc. Everyone's talking about blogs, but there's not really a word to describe the purpose. So I made one up.

People define blogs as online journals. That definition leaves out blogs' linky nature that elevates them into a completely different arena. Just as a web site should be more than 'brochure-ware', a blog should be more than 'journal-ware.' I see the blog as  personal, scalable conversation tool that happens to resemble an online journal. Social networks like LinkedIn, wikis and discussion forums all serve the same purpose. We're engaging in multilogues, and using the tools at our disposal to make it easier.

The reason I've been thinking about this is because I've gotten push-back on the term "social technologies" as an umbrella term for blogs, wikis & forums. Perhaps the word 'technologies' is too tactical for a concept that's really quite a strategic/culture shift for companies.  One suggestion was "social engagement framework"; but someone else bashed using the word "social" because it doesn't seem to fit internal corporate applications.

Anyway, not sure where I"m going with this, but it would be fun to multilogue this topic. :-)

Brand Humanity Series: What's Covered

“Brand Humanity: How Social Technologies are Changing the Way We Do Business.” Wow, that’s a mouthful, but there’s a lot of ground to cover. Brand Humanity is a series of seminars that will range from high-level strategies to tactical “how-to’s” of opening dialogues with employees and customers using new technologies like blogs, wikis and forums. The series will also help business managers navigate the blogosphere and better manage their brands in a highly networked marketplace.

 All sessions in the upcoming webinar series on social technologies will include 4 basic components:

- Expert views on each particular topic

- Discussion and Q&A

- Ongoing follow-up information including updated examples and links

- Online community about your topic where you can exchange ideas and information with others who have taken the course (this will be ready in about a month)

 The first in the series, titled Brand Humanity, is the 30,000 foot overview of how social technologies are impacting brands. Held on 3/31 and 4/1, the session will cover:

- The societal trends that are fueling the exponential growth of blogs

- The impact of the "blogosphere" on your business, and how to monitor and join the customer conversation that’s already happening

- The various types of social technologies such as blogs, wikis and forums, and the six ways in which they’re being used (including internal usage)

- Culture shifts such as transparency and co-creation that accompany the ‘open business’ trend

- Guidelines for creating and maintaining corporate blogs

 The Small Business version on 4/8 will cover much of the same information, but the focus will be heavier on creating a blog and building traffic. It will not cover internal usage of blogs and wikis.

 Where the intro session will provide a topical map of the territory, subsequent sessions will allow you to delve deeper into specific topics of interest to your business. These include:

- Creating Customer Communities, co-hosted with Jake McKee, who's responsible for the success of Lego's global customer community

- Blogging Basics, co-hosted with Jeremy and Darren of Inside Blogging

- Silo-Busting: Internal Blogs and Wikis, co-hosted with Inside Blogging

 There will be more events as we move forward; future topics will come from suggestions from interested participants. I’d like to get an attorney to do a session on legal issues around corporate blogs; if you’re qualified, please contact me. Any other topic suggestions are welcome. 

You can sign up for the first event here. I'm looking forward to your participation and feedback.

Brand Humanity FAQs: Why, What & How Much

I’ve gotten several questions and comments about the upcoming webinar next week that I wanted to address here. Why I’m doing this, what I’ll talk about, why I’m charging at all when there’s a lot of free information available… or that I’m charging too little, or that I’m charging too much. In this post I’ll give the reasoning behind the webinars. In the next post I’ll provide specific outlines on what will be covered.

 There is a lot of free information out there. The problem is, there’s too much of it scattered throughout the blogosphere. It takes a lot of time and energy to surf through it all, find the good examples and information, and compile it into an easy-to-digest overview. I’m anticipating that the folks who take the webinar will need to sell the idea of a corporate blog or community to their respective bosses, and I’ll provide concise information to help them do that.

 The other problem with reading information on the web is that you don’t have the opportunity to ask questions or hear explanations on why a particular tactic is recommended. The webinars are structured with plenty of discussion and Q&A time; I’ve got a limit of 20 people for precisely this reason. Frankly, that limit may be too high, and I might lower it to 10 to 15.

 Lastly, I’ll be talking about how social technologies like blogs are impacting your brand, methods for tracking the conversations about your brand in the blogosphere, and how to use these technologies to enable customers to better connect with your brand. There are a lot of very good blog experts out there (and I’ll be inviting them as co-hosts for future webinars) but to my knowledge, there’s very little discussion about the strategic implications to your brand.

 And lastly, a small but inescapable point: it actually costs a lot to offer a webinar. It will run @ $50 per person for a 90-minute session. So obviously I need to cover my costs.

 So did I charge too much? Too little? I have no idea. I have to start somewhere. The price might go up or down depending on demand or feedback. If you don’t feel you get a good value for the money, I’ll give you a refund. Or you can take another webinar on another topic free of charge. Hey, if I’m not adding value, I need to get out of the business.  That’s what I’m here for.

 

 

 

Brand Humanity Webinar Series

"What are blogs, and how do they relate to our business?"
"Can you make money blogging?"

I've heard these questions so many times that I've decided to launch a webinar series entitled "Brand Humanity: How Social Technologies are Changing The Way We Do Business." I'm pretty excited about it; I've been wanting to evolve my consulting business into something I'm really passionate about. I love to educate, and I love to evangelize new trends like blogging. Perfect.

UPDATE: For details, go to What's Covered and FAQs.

My master plan is to serve as a social-technology education platform for businesses. Included in social technologies are blogs, wikis, community forums, etc. I'll be leading some of the seminars on big-picture issues, brand strategy implications, etc. and inviting specialists to co-host other sessions.  At this point, future sessions will include Creating Community (co-hosted with Jake McKee, the Community Guy) and Business Blogging 101 (co-hosted with Jeremy Wright and Darren Barefoot from InsideBlogging).   

But for right now...
If you're interested in the 30,000 foot view of how social technologies like blogs are impacting businesses and brands, you can sign up for the first of the series, Brand Humanity, which is designed for mid- to large-size companies (we'll get into culture shifts like transparency and co-creation, plus usage of blogs and wikis internally and externally). There's also a "Small Business" version that focuses more on the nitty-gritty of how to blog and less on corporate issues, internal usage, etc. 

Current schedule is as follows:

Thursday, March 31 from 12 - 1:30 CST (mid- to large-size businesses) 15 seats @ $175 (includes first-session "guinea-pig' discount)
Friday, April 1 from 12 to 1:30 CST (mid- to large-size businesses) 20 seats @ $250
Friday, April 8 from 12 to 1:30 CST (small businesses) 30 seats @ $150

If all sessions are booked, or you're interested in receiving information on upcoming sessions, please sign up for the newsletter by entering your email in the sign-up box in the left-hand column of this blog.

Click here to register for an event. Each event link will give a bit more detailed description of what's covered. Pricing for future events is subject to change based on demand. If you have questions, feel free to email me @ jennifer at mantrabrand.com.

Blog readership

(Via the Center for Media Research; registration required)

According to a new CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll, relatively few Americans are familiar with the phenomenon of blogging.

Although 75% of the U.S. public uses the Internet, only one in four Americans are either very familiar or somewhat familiar with blogs (the shortened form of the original "Web logs"). More than half, 56%, have no knowledge of them.

According to a December 2004 Gallup Poll, the percentage of Americans getting their news on a daily basis from the mainstream media is 51% for local television news, 44% for local newspapers, 39% for cable news networks, 36% for the nightly broadcast network news, and 21% for radio talk shows. By contrast, only 3% of Americans say they read Internet blogs every day, and just 2% read politics-focused blogs daily.

Blog readers are younger than the population at large. Although 17% of the public is aged 18 to 29, a quarter of all blog readers (those who read even occasionally) are in this age bracket... Gallup finds no gender differences in blog readership, or according to party affiliation. There are slight differences by political outlook, as about a quarter of liberals (24%) say they read blogs at least monthly, compared with 15% of conservatives and 12% of moderates.

More info at Gallup.com (purchase required)

 

Not worthy

Vaspers the Grate has a terrific post on why You are Not a Blog:

You are not a worthy topic for a blog. You are interesting only to yourself, and even to that audience, only interesting intermittently.

This is true for both personal and business blogs. Especially business blogs. Customers will not come back to your blog to hear a bunch of self-important pronouncements about your products, services or company. Talk about something interesting to them. And then listen. Make it a conversation.

Book meme 123.5

Last night I discovered Network(ed) Rhetoric, a blog for a graduate course at Syracuse University. They're looking at how recent trends in network studies and social software connect with issues in rhetoric and composition and vice versa. I found all kinds of thought-provoking goodies that I'll write about when I have a bit more time to percolate on them. This site led me to Theory Canal, which featured a fun little game you can try next time you're lacking inspiration for what to post on your blog.

It's called the Book Meme 123.5 (originally from the chutry experiment). Here's how it works:

1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions.
5. Don’t search around and look for the “coolest” book you can find. Do what’s actually next to you.

I'm part way through John Winsor's Beyond the Brand, so I picked that up and flipped to p. 123. The fifth sentence isn't inspiring by itself, but -- bending the rules a bit -- the fourth is:

"Trust is a product of active listening."

What a great statement. I was thinking yesterday about "customer relationship management"  and how CRM couldn't come close to actually building relationships. Relationships are built on trust, and trust is a product of active listening. If you're trying to build relationships with customers without listening mechanisms in place (like forums, blogs, users groups, non-focus-group qualitative research, etc.), then you're just spinning your wheels.

So what does 123.5 inspire you to say today?

CMO on Blogging

One of CMO Magazine's  feature stories this month is on corporate blogging. It's a pretty decent overview of the two types of business blogs (corporate and employee) and some of the upsides and perils of the new media. If corporate blogging is new to you, this might give you a good introduction.

Link policy and building traffic

I'm getting enough emails for reciprocal link exchanges that I thought I'd take a moment to write out my link policy here on my blog. I'll also discuss what I think it takes to create a successful blog. Comments and suggestions from other bloggers are very welcome!

I believe that my blogroll is a reflection of my brand. The people on my blogroll have one of the following characteristics:

1. They participated on my blog through comments and trackbacks. They already established themselves as part of my community, and I thought they had some smart things to say. I've met many of them in person, and have probably had email exchanges with almost all of them. (or even hired them, as was the case with Johnnie). Or,
2. I somehow stumbled across their blog and was blown away by the originality of voice and smartness of content (like Headrush). Or,
3. They're highly trafficked blogs that refer a decent number of visitors to my site (like Fast Company and Tom Peters). And I also read them.

If you leave a comment or a trackback, you can be assured that I will click over and look at your blog. If I like what I see, it's likely that I'll add you to my blogroll. Probably not right away, but if you're persistent, it increases your odds. I'm not terribly good about managing my blogroll... I've got several people in mind to add, and I just haven't gotten around to it yet.

There are a lot of well-written blogs with decent content that I probably won't add to my blogroll. No offense, but there are too many blogs out there right now and I don't want a blogroll that's 10 miles long. At this point, I'm only adding blogs that are really original. They've got a viral component. They either have unique content (tough to do) or they're talking about it in a fresh and different way. They inspire me to look at the world through a new lens.

So I suppose this is a long-winded way of saying that I don't do reciprocal link exchanges. When I started my blog over a year ago, I did exactly what I'm suggesting here in this post... I found blogs that I liked, wrote comments on their posts, did trackbacks and commentary on my own blog, and linked to them voluntarily without asking them to return the favor. I was fortunate that those people visited my blog, liked what they saw and added my link voluntarily to their blogroll. I felt good knowing that I was being added because they thought my blog had value... not because I asked them to add me.

True, it was easier a year ago to get visibility; there were a LOT fewer business blogs. I could count most of the marketing blogs on two hands, and we formed a small community. Unfortunately for blog newcomers, it's harder to break through the clutter. And it will be even harder for those who don't start for another 6 months.

Bloggers who break through the clutter say what's on their mind and have learned to remove the "political-correctness" filter. But most importantly, they actively participate in the blogosphere through links, trackbacks and comments. It is a very time-intensive process to do; I probably spent 3 to 4 hours a day when I started my blog. Part of that time was  trying to think of something original to say; the rest of the time was spent finding like-minded blogs and participating on their sites. When you engage in dialogue, your visibility will increase. Unfortunately I've gotten lazy... there are a lot of great discussions that I could be having, but I've gotten busy with other things.

Maintaining a blog is a lot like having a child (I don't have one, but I can imagine.) It takes a lot of time, nurturing and care. It's not as easy as asking a bunch of bloggers if they'd put your link on their site. So I suppose to sum up this post on driving traffic:
1. Compare your blog to others in your space... do your posts sound distinctly "you"? Or could they appear on someone else's blog and no one would know the difference? What unique value are you adding to the blogosphere? This is the "product development" phase.
2. Participate, participate, participate. Give first in order to receive. This is the "marketing" phase.

If you check off on these two items, you should do fine. If you're not getting links, think about a way to boost the value of your content... don't resort to link exchanges. That's like relying on advertising instead of creating a buzzworthy product. In blogging, like in business and life, there are no effective short-cuts.

Market overview of blog tools

Terrific in-depth review of the market space for blog tools at elise.com.

Venturing out

I'd gotten locked into this tiny little world encompassed by my RSS reader... so tonight I'm venturing out to read new blogs. How the heck did I miss Diego's MetaCool blog? Really smart stuff. Onto the blogroll he goes. His Creating an Organization around Customers and Good Brands are Fractal are a fresh and different take on my thoughts around  Brand as Ecosystem...  I'm really digging this fractal idea.

I think I haven't ventured out because... good God, how many blogs can one read? I have no idea how Scoble peruses 1000+ blogs per day. I have a hard time keeping up with the 50 or so in my list. Scary.

BrandShift launches today!

I know I've been rather quiet the past few days... I've been working on a new project that just launched today.

I'm so excited to be part of a terrific group blog on Corante called BrandShift. My co-contributors include Johnnie Moore, John Winsor (author of Beyond the Brand) and Andy Lark (former VP Global Communications at Sun). We'll be focusing on how branding must evolve in order to survive in this new, transparent, customer-driven world.

A blurb from my intro post:

(BrandShift) is about helping brands (and branding) to "grow up" and mature in the real world of tempestuous change and customer demands.

What does it mean for a brand to mature? The same thing as when people mature... we become more honest, direct, transparent. We become better listeners and communicators. We stop seeing ourselves as the center of our world and begin to see ourselves as part of an interconnected whole. We move from following rules to making value judgements.

The BrandShift contributors are all passionate about helping brands through this transition. We'll not only discuss the theory of branding, but also the practice. We'll have podcast discussions with CEOs and brand owners on how their brands are evolving in the new economy... growing pains and all. And we'll cover the new social technologies and discuss their impact on brands.

Please come visit us! And if you have suggestions about specific topics you'd like us to address, please let us know in the comments section of my first post.

(And go read Johnnie's post on Spectators or Players... good stuff!)

Business Blogging Awards, 2

Looks like they finally worked out the kinks with the voting software at the Business Blogging Awards. Go vote! Lots of good sites in the list.

Smart new blog

Thanks, Hugh, for the link to this smart, cool new blog. I'm a fan. Love this post on Teaching and Advertising.

Teachers need to get better at motivation.

Advertisers need to get better at...caring and honesty.

Go there to read the rest of the post and laugh at the cartoon. Really good stuff.

 

Business Blogging Awards

Wow, I didn't even know I was nominated for Best Marketing Blog in the BBA 05 until I saw it in my referrer stats. If you enjoy reading, I'd really appreciate a vote! There are a lot of terrific blogs out there and I'm enjoying surfing through the list.

UPDATE: They're having glitches in the voting program, so hang tight... they should have the site back up by tomorrow.

Blog Defense Strategies

I accidentally lost my post on the great discussion between Robert, Buzz and Anil on how to interact with the blogosphere from a PR standpoint. Darren has a pretty good recap here.

Summit overview

This has been my first blog conference, and I must say that it was definitely worth my while to attend. Sessions have been great, but more importantly I met some terrific people. I think the best thing that's come out of this Summit is that it's reinvigorated me and stimulated a lot of new ideas.

This is the first of several Summits that will be held in various cities, so I encourage you to attend if you can. I've used my blog as a place to store notes from the sessions, and I plan to come back to some of these issues and address them in my own voice. But I wanted to give you a taste of what's been discussed over the past couple days.

Enhancing Internal Communications

Nick Finck with Digital Web and ZAAZ, Biz Stone at Google, and Mary Hodder are talking about how internal communications can be enhanced using blogs, wikis and more. (This time I'm going to copy my post as I work,  because I just lost my last post! Very frustrating.)

Biz talks about using blogs inside Google: There's a team blog for everyone who works on the Blogger team. Posts can range from happy birthday to info on competitors, and posts are emailed to the team. People also use individual blogs to establish an identity within the company. It's the same thing as in the blogosphere, but on a much smaller scale.

I can write a post that says, "wouldn't it be cool if someone built xyz product?" and I'll come back from lunch to find an email from an engineer who says, "Great idea; I just built it." This is powerful stuff. My blog is a great way to reel in engineers and share ideas. And with a blog you can make yourself heard and make a name for yourself internally."

Nick talks about the company-wide Intranet blog at ZAAZ. Certain people are authorized to post on the blog, and they stick to certain topics per day. So Mondays are projects, Tuesdays are sales (like new deals signed, etc.), Wednesdays are operations, etc.

Mary contributes on blogs for personal, professional, acaemic and conferences & events. These blogs showcase her knowledge and she gets new business from them.

Moving on to wikis... this was interesting to me because I've never used a wiki but really need to familiarize myself with this technology. It's a great way for companies to aggregate and manage departmental, project, and company-wide knowledge.

Biz uses wikis at Google for collaborating on projects and for proposed projects (ideas). They use Sparrow Web, which came out of Xerox Park. It's like a wiki but is more formatted; looks interesting, and you can get a free 90-day trial if you want to play with it.   

Nick uses wikis at ZAAZ for collaborative authoring and tribal knowledge (ie. best practices, resources, tools, FAQs, etc.) What happens when your expert engineer leaves the company? Wikis are a great way to maintain individual knowledge so that the entire company benefits. And it's infinitely more efficient than relying on emails floating around the company.

Project management tool

This is really cool... Jason Fried from Basecamp is demo-ing their software during the lunch break at the Blog Business Summit. Basecamp is a blog-based project management tool that's pretty amazing. It's billed as a client extranet tool, but it's also used by accounting firms, banks, public schools and wedding planners. "Project communication and schedules are centralized, automatically organized, archived by date and topic, and accessible from any computer." There's also an RSS feed so you can be notified if there's been any changes to the project. If you need a project management tool, check this out.

Measuring the Pulse of a Brand

Buzz Bruggeman and Pete Blackshaw are talking about marketing tactics in this session. Unfortunately I missed Buzz's presentation, but here's Pete:

Pete is the CMO for Intelliseek, which has an interesting product called BrandPulse. A brand is a promise, a set of values, an identity. BrandPulse is a temperature check, heart beat, an early radar system to monitor company reputation as measured by buzz on the Web. They track 5 million blogs, thousands of boards and forums, PlanetFeedback, and internal data (millions of untapped comments from customers in company databases) to listen in on the conversation about brands. This is a great combo of qualitative feedback in a quantitative scope.

Frameworks for measuring marketing:

• Financial: sales impact
• Clicking patterns
• Seeking: Did the brand event drive a response to ssek more info? how often?
• Speaking: Did the brand event/experience elicit a desire to tell others? How and why? What was the consequence?

When someone talks about a brand, it never happens in a vaccuum. They're expressing satisfaction, dissatisfaction, or responding to a stimulus like an ad. They may speak on a discussion board or forum, a blog, a rating site, or in a social network. Consumers and bloggers make a huge impact because their content is circulating throughout the net (forever). Consumer-created content is dominating the web, and it's perceived as a trusted source. Seekers of information (consumers, media, analysts, regulators, lawyers, and competitors) are going to the search engines to learn about brands. This is a new age of transparency, and information can no longer be censored by corporations. We can't control it, but we can manage it.

Ad agencies are focusing on click-throughs on banner ads or sponsored links. But the real "advertising" is the authentic, organic content developed by consumers themselves. Consumers are more likely to click on a consumer-generated content rather than company-sponsored content. Advertisers that screw up and betray the trust have to live with horrible search results filled with consumer-created negative content.

And we're running out of time; Pete just raced through some really great stuff and I couldn't type that fast. I'll write more on this subject later, as I'm pretty fascinated with how blogs and other new technologies are impacting brands.

Corporate blogging

Lenn Pryor at Microsoft and Matthew Oliphant from Business Logs are talking about Corporate Blogging: Strategy and Policy at the Blog Business Summit. The following are my notes from their presentation and the ensuing discussion:

Why should a company allow blogging?

• You can't afford not to have a dialogue with your customers
• ride the Cluetrain
  • markets are conversations
  • internet has sped up the pace of conversation
  • conversation is happening with or without you
• product  and customer service agility
• living feedback loop
• humanization of your company
• react to good news, react to bad news

A corporate blog is about change management and risk management. More openness and more interaction with your customers means change (to the corporate culture and the way you do things) and risk. The company has to be prepared to be an adult; to take criticism and feedback. You're going to take some lumps. But it's like AA, admitting that you're an addict. Corporate leadership needs to admit that the conversation needs to happen in order to grow and improve.

Corporate blogging is not about installing a platform and pressing Go. It takes a change in most aspects of the organization.

Lenn presents the basic guidelines for Microsoft bloggers:

• Be smart.
• Respect existing confidedntiality agreements
• Don't break news, don't disclose confidential info
• be cautious with 3rd party info
• Respect prior employers
• Identify yourself
• Be cautious in how you offer support and advice. If you're wrong, the company can be held legally liable for damages.
• Speak for yourself
• Think about reactions before you hit 'post.' Think about how the post would look on the front page of a national newspaper.

Don't make laundry lists of rules, because it gets too confusing. There's no official "policy" on blogging at Microsoft. Don't be overly prescriptive; let your employees be adults. There's a level of trust that must take place.

Internal Blogging:
Use blogging as a tool for project management. It's a good thing to start internally, because there's greater leeway in what you can do. Behind the firewall you've got greater acceptance for risk and failure.

External Blogging:

• Blogging supports Reputation, one of the three pillars of a company (the other two being Financial and Operational).
• Find a leader who can champion blogging and who reflects the values of the company.
• Passion sells, both internally and externally.
• The voice of your bloggers become part of your brand. Let them use their own voice for it will sound more real and honest.
• The goal is to build relationships and communicate the values of the company. Customers want to know the people behind the company. That's why you shouldn't outsource blogging.
  
  • However, it's quite valid to hire blog consultants to coach your team, write posts for a period of time and then transition out.
• Customers are supportive of companies that have a great deal of transparency, and opening up the inner workings of your company is a way to build trust, support and forgiveness.
• Good bloggers can come from the lowest rungs of the customer support team, all the way up to the executive level.
• Start an internal blog or wiki to preview topics and discuss why these topics should or should not be shared on the public blog.
• Reward good bloggers at paycheck time, if they're effective evangelists for your company.
• Everyone neeeds to know your company's guidelines for speaking about company topics in public. If an employee gets fired for blogging without consenting to the blogging policy, they have the right to sue for their salary.

Oooh, good last question from the audience: Since Scoble doesn't blog on company time, would it be ok for him to accept money from a "tip jar?" Lenn hesitates, and...  sorry, we're out of time. Really good issue that needs to be addressed, because it makes a lot of sense.

The art of good blog writing

A good question surfaced at the summit: can good blog writing be learned? Halley says yes, to an extent. If we want to learn how to paint, we study the masters. And then we start painting. A lot. At first it might not be great, but as we continue to paint, we get better. Same with blogging. The key is to read good blogs and see what they're doing. And then we blog. A lot.

Also, don't assume that classic "writers" within a corporation (ie corporate communication folks) are good candidates for writing the company blog. Better to find someone in the company who is passionate. Passion always gets people engaged, and they can learn the writing style.

Stowe Boyd, President of Corante, is talking about establishing your "true voice"... the most critical thing that someone must do to be a successful blog writer.  You must have a strong emotional commitment to the stance you've taken. Have a strong character. 

A few more points from Stowe:
It's important to nurture your circle of connections, your "inner circle." Blog writing is not just your writing, it also includes the complementary writing from your network (comments, posts, etc.) that stimulate your thinking. Your blog is your network.  Don't "write articles in blog clothing."

"Draw a line."  Whatever that line might be on a subject, choose a side and howl at the moon when someone disagrees with you.  Have an argument, get into a public debate, rant, draw out all sides of an issue. Be passionate. It's rewarding when you feel like you're fighting a battle for a cause.

At the summit

I'm here in Seattle at the Blog Business Summit and it's been a great day, although I arrived late and missed Scoble's opening keynote. I sat with blog buddies Evelyn Rodriguez and Todd Sattersten at lunch; email is great, but nothing beats a good face-to-face conversation. There are several others here who I know and need to meet in person; I'm looking forward to the reception tonight.

Subject matter today was focused primarily on tactical issues like blog software comparison and building traffic (comments, RSS, trackbacks, etc.). I would have blogged on these sessions but it took me all day to get connected to this wi-fi network. Halley's talking right now about writing style: "Be authentic, be passionate, be brief. Post frequently and keep it fresh. Have a voice; be yourself, be conversational. People want to hear a real person talking. It's ok to make mistakes; don't sound PR-ish, it's deadly!"

Tomorrow's sessions will get into more corporate blogging stuff like corporate strategy & policy, marketing strategies, PR issues and internal communication. Now that I'm connected, I'll get into more detail on these subjects...

Blogs & wikis: At the tipping point?

Hugh talks about whether blogs have reached the tipping point:

The blogosphere waits for the corporate-mainstream "Tipping Point" to arrive, the point where blogging stops being the supposed realm of freaks, weirdos, unemployed marketing consultants, unpublished novelists, political junkies and underworked cube dwellers, and starts being HUGE! An essential pillar of any corporate strategy and execution etc etc.

The GM blog sent a signal that we might, might, might have reached the corporate tipping point (we reached the individual tipping point a while ago, methinks).

Hugh also had a link to Jonathan Hardwick, a Microsoft blogger who writes about how wikis are becoming an indispensible tool for getting customer feedback:

The first big hit was the Internet Explorer feedback wiki, which rapidly grew to the point where helpful users began refactoring it into easily-digestible pieces. The IE team still hangs out there, although now of course they also have a much more Slashdottable blog.

Then in November the MSN Search team shipped the beta of their MSN Desktop Search tool. Pretty soon I was losing track of all the neat desktop search hacks that the blogosphere was finding, so an MSN Search wiki seemed like another good idea. The MSN Search team took the idea and ran with it, adding pages for the new MSN web search engine as well – you that know a team really “gets” wikis when the guy in charge of program management blogs about it!

Skeptics and laggards, it's time to board the bus.

Blog Business Summit

OK, I just made my reservations to go to the Blog Business Summit... but too late to get the negotiated room discount at the Marriott. The hotel is almost full, so you better book now if you're thinking of going (and want to stay with everyone else).  I'm psyched to meet so many of my blog buddies in person!

Proud to be a blogging babe

I'm in really good company. I'm one of the first three "Top 10 Smartest Blogging Babes" along with Jackie Huba and Yvonne Divita, according to Michael at Small Business Branding. It took me a while to post this, honestly, because I can be a bit shy about taking a compliment (especially when it's this public!). I see that it's starting to draw some controversy, which certainly makes it all quite fun. Thanks, Michael!

business blog summit

I'm thinking about going to the Business Blog Summit in Seattle on Jan 24th and 25th... Anyone else going? I'd love to put faces with names...

Blogging the Tsunami

Good article this morning in the New York Times (registration required) about the role of blogging in bringing instant news of the tsunami disaster.

For vivid reporting from the enormous zone of tsunami disaster, it was hard to beat the blogs.

The so-called blogosphere, with its personal journals published on the Web, has become best known as a forum for bruising political discussion and media criticism. But the technology proved a ready medium for instant news of the tsunami disaster and for collaboration over ways to help.

Bloggers at the scene are more deeply affected by events than the journalists who roam from one disaster to another, said Xeni Jardin, one of the four co-editors of the site BoingBoing.net, which pointed visitors to many of the disaster blogs...

"(Blogs) are helping us understand the impact of this event in a way that other media just can't," with an intimate voice and an unvarnished perspective, with the richness of local context, Ms. Jardin said.

That makes blogs compelling - and now essential - reading, said Dr. Siva Vaidhyanathan, an assistant professor of culture and communication at New York University and a blogger. Once he heard about the disaster, "Right after BBC, I went to blogs," he said.

The article mentions several blogs that are covering news of the tsunami:
BoingBoing.net
WorldChanging
TsunamiHelp
Sumankumar

Freelance blogger wanted

One of my clients is starting a blog but doesn't have the internal resources to maintain it. This company is also launching a blog tool that they're reselling (it's very feature-rich; I'll blog on it after it launches). So the responsibilities of the freelance blogger would be to:
1. Maintain the corporate blog content and build traffic. I'm guessing 3 to 4 posts per week.
2. Provide customer support on the blog tool (answer questions, etc) and post tips/tricks on the corporate blog
3. Be the primary liaison between the client and the company who owns the blog tool; providing customer feedback,  prioritizing upgrades/modifications, etc.

At this point, we don't have any estimates on how much time #2 and #3 would take, since the tool hasn't been launched. I imagine this will start off slow and build up to (potentially) a full-time gig. If you're interested, please send me an email with links to blogs you've authored, how long you've been blogging, why you think you'd be good for the job, and your rate. Send your email to jriceatmantrabrand.com. 

In defense of blogging

Thanks to Bob Cargill for the link to this article in DM News that bashes blogging as a useful form of marketing for businesses. The author writes:

I have yet to find a single marketer who says that a business blog has gotten him a positive return on investment...

There are two major problems with blogging as a business-building tool.
The first is that most blogs I encounter are rambling, streams-of-consciousness musings about a topic of interest to the author, largely bereft of the practical, pithy tips that e-zines, Web sites and white papers offer.

The second problem involves distribution. With an e-zine, once the reader subscribes, he gets it delivered to him electronically every week or month or however often you send it. But with a blog, the reader has to go out and proactively look for it. And since your contributions to your blog may be irregular and unscheduled, he has no way of knowing when something new of interest has been added.

...most blogs seem to be the private, idiosyncratic musings of an individual, without censure or editing of any kind. And the result is like porridge: a gloppy mess, tasteless and not very satisfying.

Obviously this writer didn't do his homework. Yes, people make money from blogging. Hmm, rambling streams of consciousness with no practical tips... my Bloglines account is crammed full of the most interesting authors I'd ever want to read. And speaking of Bloglines, the author clearly hasn't heard of RSS feeds and how that's transforming content distribution. I could go on and on, but I won't.... since you, dear reader, obviously know the truth of blogging. How we get the word out to the rest of the world is another issue...

Typepad

In case you were wondering why my last post appeared in your RSS feed 6 times...

I discovered something new about saving posts in Typepad. If Typepad's server is busy, don't hit "Esc" and "Save" again. As my RSS subscribers have probably noticed, Typepad will save your post every time you hit Save... even if the operation times out and it doesn't appear to have been saved. So now I know not to be so impatient. :-)

Missed blog opportunities

On MarketingProfs.com, B.L. Ochman writes about 10 companies that missed great blog opportunities. This list is a great idea-starter for companies who are curious about blogs but not sure how to incorporate them into their businesses.

Manifesto

At ChangeThis, Guy Kawasaki publishes his manifesto, The Art of the Start.

For those of you who clicked over here from that page, it seems that there were some coordination difficulties... I was supposed to publish the manifesto here at Brand Mantra, but I didn't receive it before it was published. Not only that, but I can't figure out how to actually download the manifesto from the ChangeThis site.

So hang tight until I can get more info...

UPDATE: Ok, I finally got my hands on the manifesto. The optional email field next to the download button threw me... at first glance it looks like a way to sign up to receive more manifestos. I'm going to chalk it up to a web usability issue so that I don't feel so silly missing the big red download button :-).
Commentary is coming soon!

Corporate blogging case study

For those of you who don't receive the MarketingSherpa e-newsletter (and if you're at all interested in marketing, you should!), check out their newest article/case study:

Software Company President Blog Proves a Publicity & Search Optimization Bonanza

Article is only free until June 26.

Transparency's Silver Lining

Via Ari Paparo and Frosty Mug:

Should corporate blogs allow trackbacks? You might say no when you read the laundry list of negative trackbacks on Movable Type's post about licensing terms for their Developer Edition. This is transparency at its finest: how many companies are willing to be open enough to allow feedback from customers that the entire world can see?

In my opinion, transparency is a great thing, but it takes a lot of courage. Companies need to remember that negative word of mouth is going to happen anyway. It reminds me of individuals who don't take constructive criticism well, so people end up talking about them behind their backs. Mature people -- and companies -- are open to hearing the good, the bad and the ugly so they have the opportunity to learn and grow.

Transparency tools like trackbacks & comments allow companies to engage in a dialog. I'd expect to see some follow-up posts from Movable Type along the lines of, "Hey, we heard you; thanks for the feedback. And here's what we're going to do about it." Even if they don't plan to change their pricing, they at least have the opportunity to address customer concerns. If I had the choice, I'd rather work with an open company like Movable Type than a company who doesn't want to hear what I have to say.

Corporate Blog Examples

I've had several clients express interest in blogging for their businesses, so I'm going to start a running list of companies that are doing it well. Not trying to compete with Rick Bruner at Business Blog Consulting; he's got a phenomenal and comprehensive review of business blogs. I just want a short list of blogs sponsored by companies that sell products, so it won't include micro-businesses or intellectual-capital type companies. I'll add to this list as I come across them; if you're aware of others, please let me know!

GM Smallblock Engine Blog

Ford Motor Company blog

XBox Live blog (unofficial blog)

Maytag Skybox blog

Kodak's Ofoto.com: Ofoto Blog is used to get feedback and resolve issues with Brownie, a new beta Mac application (found via BeConnected)

PerceptionAnalyzer: Dial.log blog has a nice mix of posts on their product and on relevant news & information for their target audience (marketers)

Bplans.com: Bplans Blog is a great extension of Bplans.com, an informative site for entrepreneurs starting a new business. It's owned by Palo Alto software.

800-CEOREAD: The CEOREAD blog gives great reviews on the business books sold on the main site.

Corporate blog articles:
Fortune Magazine, Why There's No Escaping the Blog (Jan 05)
Gates backs blogs for business
Inc.com Technofile: Blogging for Business
Are you afraid to blog? by Robert Scoble

Blog Award Nomination

I'm excited that What's Your Brand Mantra? has been nominated for the MarketingSherpa's Reacher's Choice Award, along with a few of my favorite fellow marketing bloggers. If I merit your vote, I'd appreciate you letting them know!

Click here to vote...

10 Rules for Corporate Blogs

Today on MarketingProfs.com, the top 10 rules for corporate blogging. Click through to the story for full details.

1. Be authentic
2. Be an unmatched resource
3. Once you start, don’t stop
4. Keep it relevant
5. Measure your effectiveness
6. Monitor other blogs
7. Trust your employees
8. Use blogs for knowledge management
9. Use wikis for employee and customer collaboration
10. Develop an organizational content strategy now

Blogging is Booming

Check out the stats on blogging on iMedia (thanks to BuzzMachine for the link).

Corporate Weblog Manifesto

If this is old news to everyone, I apologize... but I just stumbled upon Robert Scoble's Corporate Weblog Manifesto. If you have -- or are thinking about launching -- a corporate blog, this is a must-read.

Are you a survivor?

David at Ripples offers a great post on Survival of the Fittest. He asks the question,

"Would you like to be writing your weblog a few years from now? Can you even stand the idea of blogging for that long? I don't have the answers for you, but it has made me think about my own future as a blogger."

Great question. Visit his post to read the 6 factors that will lead to a long-term life for a blogger.

Blogging for business

I love reading my 'stats and referrers' section of my Typepad, because I invariably stumble across interesting new blogs like Bplans Blog... which is the new blog for bplans.com, owned and operated by Palo Alto Software.

As the recent Fast Company article indicates, blogging for business is on the rise. Although the article primarily references larger companies using blogging for internal communication, it does mention Scobleizer... and there are many more company blogs peeping their heads up into the blogosphere to communicate with customers. This is a terrific trend, because it's a way for customers to put a face on a usually faceless company. Bplans Blog, while allowing comments (but no trackbacks), still doesn't have a 'face' on their blog. Clicking on "About Us" reveals corporate information and a brief mention of Tim Berry, the Founder of Palo Alto Software (who you don't realize is a contributor to the blog until you scroll through the posts and see his name)... and nothing about Noah, the primary contributor to the blog.

Now, Tim and Noah, this is certainly not meant to be a criticism of your blog... although it's not quite a week old, I can tell it's going to flesh out into a great resource. But I think it surfaces a few questions about corporate blogs... Should corporate bloggers give some background on who they are? How much information should they share? What's the right balance between the face of individual bloggers and the corporations they represent?