Business weblogs
IMN released quite a good white paper on business weblogs, even though it is dated December 2003. The document explains how the business world is quickly adopting weblogs to liberate their intellectual capital, their product and service development, their salespeople and customers from the limiting modes of conventional offline and online communication.
Weblogs are evolving into a business tool that is gainning strength in complementing current content-based technology. Their self-publishing advantages are changing how individuals and companies are digitally communicating and collaborating. They make the amount of time and money companies now invest in traditional online development seem excessive and wasteful.
Business blog strategies - Early adopters
“… every organisation has vast stores of intellectual capital idling away in the minds of its leader and top managers. But the ability to share it has been limited by conventional forms of communication: meetings, reports and presentations. Email certainly opened up the lines to two-way discourse, but unlike weblogs, the exchange does not build on itself. Moreover, it is generally one-at-one communication, often with no expectation of dialogue beyond a single reply. Web sites, and extranets in particular, have the technology for targeted community building but they are clunky dialogue tools, requiring HTML programmers to cut and post all the content and a certain amount of hosting support.
Now companies are encouraging staff members to self-publish professional weblogs, thereby doing and end run around the walls that have prevented free range business discussion on the web. No battling for presentation on the company site. No requests forms for content changes and updates. Equally important, the weblog’s self-publishing technology automatically democratises the use of the web. Typically, one department responsible for managing and maintaing the Internet. If it is marketing, then it is a good bet that the majority of the company’s online efforts will be devoted to marketing. Weblogs give every department, and every individual in every department, the ability to leverage the web according to his or her needs. Plus there is a certain element of personal power that is hard to deny. Suddenly the best thinkers have their own digital voice that they manage and control themselves.”
From knowledge management to sales
“… weblogs can archive themselves and eliminate the need for a cumbersome e-library. They can be searched by publisher or by topic. More importantly, they are turning knowledge management from a lump of information that resides on a distant server into a real-time, dynamic exchange among certain groups. Example: a large packaged goods company can have a weblog, published by the senior product manager, for every product - a perpetually live communication destination for sales, marketing, and R&D teams. Every morning, the product managers post updates right from their desktops (they can even do it while they are on the road). The rest of the product’s weblog community can then check in and review sales numbers, post manufacturing issues, suggest improvements, review upcoming marketing rollouts, and check inventory thermometers. Other forms of meetingware can enable these tasks. But the key here is that there is no need for technical support. This is practical knowledge management.”
“… imagine a salesperson sets up a weblog for each major customer. Every morning, or every week, he or she types a short paragraph into the content field of each weblog - news about product enhancements, troubelshooting tips, upcoming promotions. The customers can read them and respond at their convenience, they feel connected and relevant an have a personal, one-to-one persistent dialogue that can be dropped off and picked up at any time. All the salesperson has to do is check the responses regularly to maintain his or her end of the discussion. This helps in timing new product presentations, identifying issues and potential problems, sharing new industry thinking - all in a format that is as personal as a phone call.”
3 Comments
