The Case for Blogs in Business

Matt Goyer & Jennifer Schachter

November 13, 2003

Agenda

• What is a weblog?

• How can a weblog benefit my corporation?

• What concerns must be addressed before

implementing a weblog in my business?

• What’s the next step?

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 browser…A weblog post has three basic attributes: title, link and description. All are optional.”

– Dave Winer, Harvard Berkman Fellow

What is a weblog?

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

Weblog Example

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

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

Microsoft’s Robert Scoble

Jupiter Analyst Weblog

Beyond the Browser

Benefits

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

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?

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 [web]blogs will become the source.”– Personal interview with John Patrick, October 20, 2003.

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

Knowledge Management

Knowledge Management

• Weblogs as a KM tool…– Information from different applications can

exist in a single location– Take information once limited to an

individual’s use and open it to the organization– Easy to search– Reduce information overload

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

Marketing & PR

• Brand Awareness

“If it’s a blatant pitch for marketing it wouldn’t work. But if you’re 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

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)

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

Concerns

• Legal and regulatory– Libel– Disclosure

• Control– Confidential information disclosed– People can write what they want

Concerns

• People have been fired

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

Addressing Concerns at Microsoft

• Robert Scoble’s personal guidelines:I always think about how I'm going to justify what I'm talking about to:

1. My wife (she'll be the first to have to explain it to if I get in trouble). 2. My boss. 3. Steve Ballmer (metaphor for executives). 4. My co-workers. 5. 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.

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/

Summary

• Weblogs can transform the way people within your company communicate

• Some concerns…easily addressable.

Weblogs will revolutionize the way your business works!

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 EmployeesPhone Calls = Lost

E-mail = Lost

Weblogs = Archived

Source: John Robb

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.• O’Shea, 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 Ozzie’s 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. ACM’s 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.

Questions?