The Corporate Blogging Book

On the forty-second page of “The Corporate Blogging Book: Absolutely Everything You Need to Know to Get It Right” author Debbie Weil wrote (emphasis added):

A blog published on a company Web site is going to have a team or at least several people behind it. These folks may be allied with your Web content staff or your communications team or your marketing department. But it's most likely going to be more than one person in a bigger organization. In addition, you're going to have a content strategy, both for creating the blog and for keeping it going. Yes, you'll try for passion and spontaneity in your blog. But it will be planned. And that's OK.

"I've never really found the time to blog, so to speak. For me blogging isn't about sitting down on a regular basis and dreaming up something to say. It's more about indignation, frustration, pride and beliefs. I always have my BlackBerry with me. When I'm feeling inspired I jot something down. I've always been this way."

—Bob Lutz, General Motors¹⁰

Another time concern about blogging is that it's a distraction to employees. According to an analysis by Advertising Age, U.S. workers annually are wasting the equivalent of 551,000 years reading blogs. AdAge.com calculated that 35 million workers (one in four) visited blogs in 2005 and spent 3.5 hours or 9 percent of the work week reading them.¹¹

But the same concern could be expressed about employees spending too much time on email or surfing the Web. And blogs are, of course, just Web sites. So where do you draw the line? How do you separate blogging—reading or writing them—from the other forms of online communication and information gathering that are part of every knowledge worker's modus operandi?

You don't. Blogging can and should be lumped in with email, Instant Messaging, chat rooms, discussion boards, forums—in other words, the kinds of online communications your employees are already engaged in.

More information about “The Corporate Blogging Book: Absolutely Everything You Need to Know to Get It Right” (and the book itself) is available from:

• Powell's Books
• Amazon.com
• Barnes & Noble

(Portfolio, August 2006. Hardcover, 218 pages. ISBN: 1591841259; EAN: 9781591841258.)

Comments

[Debbie Weil]

Thanks for the great write up of page 42 - clever idea!

[BridgetPollard]

I opine that to get the personal loans from banks you should have a good motivation. But, one time I've received a term loan, because I was willing to buy a building.