This post originated from an RSS feed registered with Agile Buzz by James Robertson. Original Post: Blogging The Market Feed Title: Cincom Smalltalk Blog - Smalltalk with Rants Feed URL: http://www.cincomsmalltalk.com/rssBlog/rssBlogView.xml Feed Description: James Robertson comments on Cincom Smalltalk, the Smalltalk development community, and IT trends and issues in general. Latest Agile Buzz Posts Latest Agile Buzz Posts by James Robertson Latest Posts From Cincom Smalltalk Blog - Smalltalk with Rants

There are certain issues to be stressed here. First, it is obvious that unless the weblog is unique, it 19s not going to work. Weblogs are an attempt to break free from the dehumanised, standardised, conformant with corporate guidelines on how to address an audience PR speak. This is why they work and Macromedia 19s Tom Hale gets it when he says 1Creaders should perceive the weblogs as the thoughts of community managers instead of corporate shills 1D. No doubt. But then he says that they wouldn 19t have been true blogs if they had put them on Macromedia.com. Why? Is it OK for employees to speak with a real voice but it 19s not OK for companies to do so? Primarily, it 19s a matter of mindset. Organisations have been stuck with rigid frameworks for way too long. It 19s only because of these mind frames that companies are compelled to traffic their voice to press conferences, press releases, investors and shareholders reports. Channelling one company 19s voice into routes more dialectic than traditional corporate outlets has been frowned upon as a mere illusion. But there is no illusion here. It all depends on your definition of a company and corporate (or marketing) communications.

This is perhaps the biggest issue that many organizations face - no one wants to read another breezy press release, and few believe the claims anyway. Even if you have useful information to convey. Think about restaurants - what claims do you put more value on:

• The ones from an ad?
• The ones from a restaurant reviewer in the newspaper?
• The ones from people you actually know who ate there?

I'd guess you put weight on those from the bottom up - and that points out the issue with most corporate websites - the information is top down, and that's the least persuasive form of information for an awful lot of people. The nice thing about a weblog is that it puts a face and a voice on the corporation, which puts it at the level of the reviewer (at least) - and possibly at the personal level eventually. That can only be helpful - look at the reviews at Amazon, for instance - sure, there are bogus ones there. But I look at them when I cruise Amazon for books on "counterfactuals" (like this one by Harry Turtledove, for instance). I don't always go with the reviews, but they do help me out - and I put more weight on them than I do in the publisher's blurb. Likewise, the thoughts of your lead developers and project managers - and the commentary provided back from actual users - are going to be given more weight than the product announcement.

In any case, I recommend the article. There's a lot there, and I don't agree with all of it - but it's a thought provoking read