Corporate Blogging - Blog exploring new age / new ideas in Marketing and Marcom

Some fresh thinking

2006-02-04T17:20:00.000-05:00

It's Saturday and I've been working most of the day. So, I need some fresh insight. I am looking for a word (or words) that would be similar to portal or entry point (yes I've looked at Wikipedia and a bunch of dictionaries, etc. on the web). If you want to build a top layer to something, an overlay to organize a bunch of things beneath. This top layer would organize a bunch of disaggregated things beneath it to create an organized social network. Any ideas?

Thanks for checking in with me.

Film crew in action

2006-01-30T14:54:00.000-05:00

Sometimes we go to great lengths to bring our stories to life on the On Demand Business site. I recently sent a crew go to the Isle of Wight in the UK to film and interview Andy Stanford-Clark, Master Inventor, IBM UK. Andy has captured the day complete with photos from his perspective in his eight bar blog. An interesting behind the scenes look at what we do.

Why were we at Andy's? Andy invents interesting things that while they often have home use such as a mousetrap that advises you when it had caught something or a widget to keep tabs on his 14 llamas, these inventions are often the beginnings of exciting business applications. If you have followed some of our editorial in the last year or so, we are taking a close look at business transformation, innovation, how to grow your business etc. One lesson I think I find from the interviews and everything I've been doing the last year is that I think we have to find time away from the constand demands for our minds and our time in order for the innovation to occur. Given the demands on our life and time, there isn't enough time to "think"; to let our minds wander. In the current pace of business too many of us are rushing to put checkmarks against the "to do" lists rather than stopping to think if we need to change the list entirely.

I've been away from my blog for a bit of time for a few reasons. I had some personal loss with the deaths of my mother and brother just a couple months apart. Also, I was at a bit of a loss where to go with this blog. I was a bit bored with "blogging about blogging". I'm not sure where this will go but I'm thinking that this blog may morph into a conversation more about how to cut through the clutter of our business lives to get to the next level, how to work on the cutting edge or be on the beginning edge of business trends.

No promises yet... In the meantine, check out what Andy has to say. Something about living in a 400 year old farmhouse on the Isle of Wight while tinkering and inventing sounds like a pretty interesting mix.

Thanks for checking in with me.

New Blogging Book soon to be published

2005-12-02T17:43:00.000-05:00

Debbie Weil is finalizing a new blogging book titled "The Corporate Blogging Book". Looks like a great new resource and I look forward to getting a copy. Also a thanks to Debbie for the Hat Tip by including my blog in her Corporate Blogging Resources list.

Thanks for checking in with me.

Microsoft trying to be as cool as IBM?

2005-12-02T17:07:00.000-05:00

I got a good chuckle from this post. The question was raised in the Complex Solutions to Simple Problems blog whether the Microsoft blogger list was "an attempt to say 'look we're as cool as IBM" Check it out...

Thanks for checking in with me.

Response to BtoB article

2005-12-02T11:32:00.000-05:00

In a recent article in BtoB magazine titled "Podcasting call lures advertisers", the author Carol Kroll writes how ... podcast has recently been replacing RSS feeds as "the hottest thing in the fast-moving digital media realm"... The article, quotes my IBM colleague Ben Edwards and mentions some of IBM's recent podcasts. The article goes on to say...

"At a luncheon put on by the Advertising Club of New York and USA Today last month called 'The Wave of Innovation' at which marketer panelists from America Online, IBM, Sharp Electronics Corp. and Xerox Corp. discussed marketing innovations and new media, not one mentioned podcasting."

Well since I was the IBMer on the panel, I of course found this statement very interesting. I really don't recall whether or not the word "podcast" was mentioned. If not, a strange oversight indeed since I have been producing podcasts for several months and do routinely create podcasts for delivering content on the On Demand Business site. Perhaps it was just in the way the questions were asked of the panel that podcasts didn't come up or perhaps at least for me, podcasts have just been another way to deliver content to my customers, I didn't give it quite the same headline as BtoB did. I do think that BtoB is mostly correct. Podcasts are a very important and interesting new way of delivering content. However, I still think that an interactive conversation and the ability for dialogue and collaboration as blogging and other social networks are providing will have a much bigger, long term and revolutionary change in how we do business. Check out our latest article on "What does an innovative company look like" where we talk with Irving Wladawsky-Burger and John Patrick about innovation and the roles of blogging, podcasts etc. in innovation.

In the interest of complete disclosure, Carol tried to interview me for the BtoB article. I'm not sure what happened but somewhere between Carol's deadline, my travel and the IBM team who organizes press interviews, the interview didn't take place.

Speaking at Usability Professionals Association

2005-11-15T15:43:00.000-05:00

I'm off to speak again tonight. This time a the Usability Professionals Association Blog Seminar. I'm going to be sharing the platform with the wonderful BL Ochman who writes the whatsnextblog. I hope they don't mind that I'm going to change the topic a bit. It's that time of year. Time to think. I know we don't get enough time to do that and around this time of year is time to plan for the following year - so I finally have to force myself away from the day to day and think. Yes I've also been away from the blog. Sorry. At any rate, I'll write more about it later if the session goes well tonight but I've been thinking a lot lately that blogging is only a piece of what is going on. I know I've always said I think of blogging as including other things like RSS, podcasting, etc. but I now think all those things are part of a greater thing called Social Networking. So, tonight I will try out a very new thought that isn't fully baked (yikes that scares me a bit) but one that I think is bigger and more important than one of it's elements - blogging...

Hope to see you there.

Thanks for checking in with me.

Ad Club of New York and USA Today luncheon

2005-10-27T22:11:00.000-04:00

A nice hello to all the people I met today at the Ad Club of New York and USA Today The Wave of Innovation luncheon. I've participated in several blogging seminars recently but I have to give a real shout out to the organizers of this meeting. Rather than focus just on the newly popular theme of blogging, the panel was questioned on a variety of new-age marketing tools like mobile marketing, search engines, old and new media, the challenges of building brands in a marketplace full of disparate channels.

The originally scheduled IBM panel member Deirdre Bigley wasn't able to attend and she asked me to step in for her. Thank you Deirdre - I had a great time. Other panel members included Lisa Judson from America Online, Bob Scaglione Sharp Electronics and Nancy Wiese with Xerox. At one point I found myself so engrossed in listening to my colleagues I nearly forgot the question we were supposed to be answering. Kevin Maney served as moderator and I learned that he will soon be starting his own blog for USA Today. So Kevin - we anxiously await your arrival. I wonder if Kevin would agree to an interview for the On Demand Business site - what do you say Kevin? Rick Bonti - really enjoyed our lunch time chat. I'll have to take your advise about Friday nights ;-)

Thanks for checking in with me.

IBMers resignation shows loyalty to employer and his principles

2005-10-19T11:39:00.000-04:00

As a follow-up on this story that has captured quite a bit of attention - particularly outside the US, I wanted to share a really great post from Instapundit. After taking IBM a bit to task for allowing the employee to quit of his own accord, they've come back to say they think they were a bit harsh on IBM and provided a different view. They have posted an e-mail they received from an unidentified IBMer. I've quoted a couple of the paragraphs below...

"In fact Gaurav decided to resign because out of appreciation and a sense of loyalty to IBM. He wrote, "The second thing dear to me is IBM's well-being. IBM has been a good employer to me. I have no complaints about them. Even in light of these events, they did not pressurise me to go against my principles and hush the matter up. Yet, IBM was being dragged into this unnecessarily. It was being made a target of bizarre pressure tactics. If even one Thinkpad laptop was actually burnt, it would cause a lot of bad press and nuisance for IBM. So I did not want IBM's well-being to be compromised in any way."

"To me that is the big story, that any corporation can still inspire such loyalty in it's employees that they'd rather leave the company than see it get hurt is, these days, nothing short of wondrous. That there are still people like Gaurav Sabnis who stick to their principles, even when it means making the tough decisions, is marvelous. I'm sorry I never got a chance to meet the man, or work with him, as he's exactly the kind of person we need to keep."

I agree with this writer. According to Gaurav, he was asked by IBM not to leave and to rethink his decision to leave IBM. I am an IBMer and I do see that IBM seeks out people with the values demonstrated by Guarav and does try and keep people with those values at IBM.

I come back to the fact that this is "fun and games until someone gets their eye poked out". I am a self titled "blogvangelist" at IBM but this also makes me realize that not everyone everywhere is playing by the same rules and even more, it is sometimes hard to know the rules. My concern is that if it has thrown up a cautionary flag for me does it do so for others and does it make some people feel that it just isn't worth the risk to be playing in this "game". If so, it will stifle our open communications. That is a risk worth pondering.

Thanks for checking in with me.

Global twist in Corporate Blogging

2005-10-11T14:08:00.000-04:00

Todd Watson who writes a blog for us on the On Demand Business site just clued me into to this one. This puts a whole new twist on a number of issues: Free Speech; Blogging and your job; strong arm tactics; protecting a respected employer from a PR scandal, etc. I'm not sure what to make of it other than to say it looks like he really fell on his sword. You have to read it for yourself at Vantagepoint. Gaurav (edited to correct spelling from Guarav to Gaurav - thank you Gaurav for pointing out the error) - you made a remarkable decision.

I guess it is just a reminder when we are looking at global blogging not everyone around the world is playing by the same "rules". We really need to be considerate when encouraging our people around the world to blog. The cost to them could be higher than we expect.

Thanks for checking in with me.

Blogging Means Business and I'm back

2005-10-06T11:05:00.000-04:00

I'm back. I've been back at work for a while but just wasn't sure how to get back to my blog. At first I thought about doing a blog tribute to my mom but it would take a book to do justice to her life. So, I've finally decided that I may just add a line here and there about her from time to time.

It has been a busy few weeks so it is going to take me a bit to catch up. I want to spend some more time talking about my trip and my blogging discussions around the world but first I just want to highlight what many others in the blogosphere have already commented on. I recently created and published an interview with 2 IBM executives; Harriet Pearson and Willy Chiu on the IBM On Demand Business site titled Blogging Means Business. There has been a good amount of Buzz around the piece and I'm happy to say for the most part it is good Buzz. There was a little bit of controversy about whether the 2 executives I featured are credible speakers on blogging if they don't have their own external blogs. I think the question was first raised by BL Ochman with one of the best responses on NevOn.

What did I learn from this piece. We probably should have mentioned that both Harriet and Willy do have internal blogs in IBM and we should have added a link to other IBM external bloggers. And stay tuned... I may have a new IBM executive blogger up on the On Demand Business site shortly ;-)

Thanks for checking in with me.

About Mom: One of my favorite stories is told by my neice. She tells about how she came to live with her Grandmother for a year as a teenager - a move she wasn't too happy about. Then she learned how her grandmother could run faster in spike heels and a short skirt than she could as a teen and soon realized how "cool" her grandmother was and what cool clothes her grandmother had. Even into her later years, my mom was a very stylish dresser who walked several miles a day.

Sadness

2005-09-16T19:17:00.000-04:00

I'm going to be cutting my tour short. While here in Sydney I learned that my mother has passed away. She loved Australia and somehow it felt right being here. One of my sister's was able to be with her. We had time to say good-bye over the past couple of years and I am very grateful for that. She was an amaing woman. I'll tell you about her another time. For now, I will be away from the blog for a bit.

Thanks for checking in with me.

Blogging from Sydney

2005-09-16T19:02:00.000-04:00

It has been a whirlwind week. Meetings in Beijing and the past couple days in Sydney. Top of mind impression. I have an MBA in international business and consider myself to be a bit more of an "internationalist" than many Americans. Frankly I've been blown away by my brief trip to AP. I can't put my finger on it yet but what is top of mind is that most of us in America really are too insular. We don't get or seem to be too interested in the international news. I don't remember the last time I read a newspaper cover to cover but I read the newspaper the South China Daily News (I think that was the name) cover to cover. There was so much that caught my attention. This is a region that is really in action, in expansion versus a US that seems more conservative. Kind of the difference between youth and the elder person.

I was in Shanghai and Beijing about 4 years ago. The difference from then to now is unbelievable. Four years ago in Beijing riding in a car you were surrounded by bicycles at the stoplights. Now the roadways are full of cars and the bicycles are on a narrow lane to the side. Before the corners had 1000's of bicycles locked up now you see only a few.

Sydney also seems very alive and active. As for blogging in Sydney, there is interest at least from my team here but Podcasts, content distribution in new formats, RSS seems to be of more interest.

I will continue my thoughts on the region and add photos when I get back. Right now we are just moving too fast with too little sleep for me to make sense of all the impressions floating around in my head.

Thanks for checking in with me.

Blogging from Beijing

2005-09-12T05:59:00.000-04:00

I just arrived in Beijing today on the first leg of this round the world "whirlwind" trip. We couldn't get the direct flights and had to go from NY to LA, hang around there a few hours, then to Hong Kong and on to Beijing. It took 30 hours to get here and I've never enjoyed a shower so much albeit a quick one because I had 30 minutes to get showered and dressed to rush off to my meetings here.

I was able to speak with our local China teams about the On Demand Business site as well as blogging. They are really interested in blogging here. I have to say I was a bit surprised, I thought there would be more hesitancy but not at all, the people I spoke with are already blogging personally and were keenly interested to understand the business applications and how they could get started here. We will spend a bit more time on it tomorrow. They were also very interested in RSS feeds and expect to get those up and running for the On Demand Business site here in China very soon.

This is my second trip to China. I was first in Beijing and Shanghai about 4 years ago. I am anxious to go to the area of Beijing that I spent time in the first trip so I can compare an area that I'm more familiar with. My first impression is that it has changed a lot. There are far fewer bicycles and far more cars than I remember. Shanghai had a lot of construction 4 years ago but now I see construction everywhere here in Beijing as well. I understand that one of my favorite areas of Beijing the Huo Tong (sorry I probably spelled it wrong - but it is a very old and beautiful residential area around the Imperial Palace) is being torn down for new construction. That is sad. I'm sure that for many of the people who live here "progress" is good but for the traveler in me, I hate to see Beijing and other cities all grow to look just a like.

I'm going to try and share a few lines from each of the countries on this trip so stay tuned.
Thanks for checking in with me.

Blogging about US Open

2005-09-07T23:18:00.000-04:00

In light of Katrina I just haven't felt like blogging but I guess it is finally time to get back to the blog.

It has been an incredibly busy time and I have a lot to report on.

First, we pushed our On Demand Business blog onto the front page of our site.

Second, I brought our blogger - Todd Watson to the US Open. IBM is a US Open Partner and I asked Todd to come to the US Open, take a look at all we do there and blog about it. He has some really interesting things to say.

Third - I have educated several more teams on blogging. Today I spoke with our Global Advertising team.

Fourth - I'm heading out on a 8 country tour to meet with my teams in the geographies on our Interactive strategy and of course to talk with them about blogging.

I'm going to do my best to post from each of the countries. I am very anxious to speak with the local teams and gain a good view of the different thoughts and views about blogging around the world. I am doing the tour in just 13 days so I'm not sure I will even know which continent I'm on or whether it is night or day but I'll do my best to give a global view.

Unfortunately, due to this trip which had some fixed meeting dates, I am unable to speak at The Power of Blogs conference. I was able to help secure a great replacement from IBM. His name is David Berger from our Corporate Communications Department - Thanks David. If you are looking for a good blog seminar, you should check this one out.

Thanks for checking in with me.

A nice comment from Toby at DivaMarketing

2005-08-26T13:43:00.000-04:00

(From DivaMarketing)
Nice example from IBM's On Demand oh how to promote a company's blogger's credibility. This is the home page. If you can't see the image click on it to expand.

Kudos to Sher Taton, the creative innovator, behind the IBM On Demand blog strategy..and a graduate of the AMA blog workshop - Blogs: Marketing Beyond the Website.

Thank you Toby for the really nice recognition about our promotion of the blog on the On Demand Business site..... Just a little "insider tip"... Be sure to take a look Sept 1 at the On Demand Business site for some new promotional treatments and without spilling the beans... the October 1 site update is really going to be "blog news".... stay tuned!

In all honestly, I'm still struggling with some limitations of the ibm.com platform that I have to work within. The platform and restrictions are currently limiting my ability to really seed and gain traction and readership for my blogs on the On Demand Business site the way that I would like but I hope to work through that as quickly as possible. Needless to say, ibm.com is a very important and valuable asset to IBM and we have to move cautiously... we can't do things that could harm the one of the company jewels.

Thanks for checking in with me.

A blast from the past...

2005-08-26T13:33:00.000-04:00

While I was away, it looks like I got a comment from an old flame.... Hey Larry - what are you up to. Let's see, last I remember you got me to fly out to California to check out the college you were attending with the idea that I would go there as well and we would potentially live happily ever after... and then you dumped me... :-) Ouch. No hard feelings - really... So, the answer to your question is yes that is me... (now I'm getting really embarrassed...) a former Miss Colorado Teenager.

Oh and hey - I was just thinking... how did you find my blog... you weren't by any chance googling my name were you... Gotcha didn't I. Still thinking of me huh ... (I couldn't resist - I owed you at least that) "Big Smile".

I sent you a personal e-mail - let's catch up.

Thanks for checking in with me.

I'm back

2005-08-25T18:16:00.000-04:00

I'm sorry I didn't let you know that I was on vacation but I actually thought I might blog a little on vacation but I had a hard drive problem... long story short my computer didn't work. I didn't want to spend vacation time on that but as soon as I returned I got it fixed so I'm back. Fortunately for me I had better luck with IBM Customer Service than Jarvis did with Dell. If you haven't seen it there is a very interesting article in Business Week titled Dell: in the Bloghouse. The long and short of it is that Dell had a very unhappy customer who began to blog about it. Something we have seen more and more. Dell didn't deal with it quickly and didn't respond quickly to the blogs and soon there was a large cadre of people blogging about their negative experiences with Dell Customer Service. As of today on Technorati there were 557 posts with Dell Jarvis and the posts had hundreds upon hundreds of links.

Lesson to all corporate blog programs about the important first step in blogging. Monitor the blogosphere. Have programs and people in place to get answers quickly and respond to issues before they get a lot of steam behind them.

Note to self - take a lesson from Jarvis and start a blog campaign against Nejame & Sons, Inc pool contractors. Construction, building contractors, pool contractors have for too long totally ignored customer service (ask anyone who has had a home built or major construction done). Maybe the blogosphere can put some power back in the consumer and balance in the system. More on that later.

Thanks for checking in with me.

Blogging continues to gain traction at IBM

2005-08-10T00:00:00.000-04:00

We are continuing to gain traction on our blogging strategy at IBM. A note went out today from a senior VP to the top executives in the corporation encouraging them to think about blogging, wikkis, content syndication etc. in their strategies. I forwarded the note on to my marketing communciatons colleagues since I'm sure the questions will start coming even more rapidly from the top asking our teams how the divisions should engage. This week alone I've been asked to speak to 5 different teams on blogging and strategy. Remember... this is my second - or it is third job! :-) (But I'm pretty lucky in that I enjoy most of the jobs I have.) Of course it didn't help lighten my load any this week that my boss resigned for an opportunity outside IBM. Eric - it's been a good few years working with you and I wish you the best!

One of the key themes we keep hearing in IBM was summed up As Irving Wladawsky-Berger (himself an IBM blogger!) notes, "this feels very much like 1995-96, the early days of the Web. Something significant is happening, and its ultimate meaning and shape haven't yet emerged. We have a unique opportunity to understand and help our clients -- and IBM itself -- leverage this phenomenon."

I've been thinking this week. IBM may not have been the first to engage in the blogging party and some have even been critical of us. But we, like a lot of our customers, have to approach blogging with a lot of thought and strategy. It's just our DNA. I think in the end, we will develop some excellent information, technology and strategies that can help a lot of our customer make good business use of the corporate blog not only external blogs but blogs with and among customers, internal blogs etc. - a true enterprize solution with a business purpose. That is what IBM does best - help our customers solve business issues and gain competitive advantage.

Thanks for checking in with me.

My future working in a sandwich shop

2005-08-03T17:47:00.000-04:00

According to John Bosma, my future may lie in working behind the counter in a sandwich shop. Basically John says that we should stop blogging about blogging. He actually makes some really good points but I think that John will give me a pass because 1) he know me and 2) because he knows that my real interest lies in uncovering and talking about new marketing mediums and today that area just happens to fall in the blogging and other new user genenerated content areas.

Am I right Boz or do I need to get working on my behind the counter skills?

2005-08-02T17:40:00.000-04:00

Haloscan commenting and trackback have been added to this blog.

Am I a really dedicated blogger

2005-08-02T16:12:00.000-04:00

David Coleman had a really good blog about Too Much Collaboration. How we are getting interrupted by e-mail, phones etc. There was some talk there of some potential IBM solutions and solutions from other's like Microsoft. I don't know about you but I can't wait for some solutions.

It wasn't that long ago in the business world that you might get out or receive 5-10 memos in a day. A memo might be dictated to a secretary, then typed, reviewed and when perfected it would be distributed. It would then take several days for people to respond to said memo. That same process would now transpire in less than 5 minutes. We are now handling all our own communications, travel scheduling, paperwork, people management systems, how many e-mail and other communications per day while trying to produce brilliant strategy or end work in what ever it is we are supposed to be doing. Now I'm also supposed to have time to program my RSS feeds, track things on Technorati, blog on the IBM internal blog and here with some intelligence while reading as many other blogs as possible, do links and trackbacks so I can become a more popular blogger..... while doing my REAL job.

In a blog conference in NYC back in February I think it was, I asked Robert Scoble if he thought it was realistic that a person could be a "famous" blogger if it weren't his full time (near full time) gig. He rather scolded me for thinking that his blog job was his job. He pointed out that his job was Channel 9 and blogging was an after hours thing. Well I'm not sure that everyone sees it that way. Maybe the Channel 9 gig and the blogging are so inter-related that what he is out doing for his "real" job just gives him a lot of information that he can use in his blogs. Please, I'm not trying to take anything away from him or other bloggers who have made it to the top. The question really is whether or not I can really find bloggers who have REALLY hard and long hour jobs in IBM and expect they can do what is necessary to become well read bloggers for IBM without expecting them to spend hours each day blogging, reading blogs, finding links etc.

The site for me is partially my own experiment to see what it is to try and regularly blog - like I am asking people in IBM to step up and do - and partially to find other people out there who need to set up blogging strategies for their companies so that we can share knowledge and experiences.

No I don't have any delusions that I am on my way to becoming a famous blogger... That just isn't what I am aiming for. So am I a really dedicated blogger. I'm still not sure. I can say that this take more effort that I first imagined. Probably why by some estimates 65% of bloggers stop blogging... but this is good information for me as I work on corporate blogging strategy.

Thanks for checking in with me.

"bad" lauguage on corporate web sites and blogs

2005-07-29T11:27:00.000-04:00

See my blog from Friday July 22 about "bad" language on corporate websites and blogs. I made a similar post to my IBM internal blog regarding finding links to "bad" words on our corporate website. I got a lot of comments on my internal blog. They really seemed to come down on two sides of the issue. One, was similar to the comment that BL made that if I understand correctly, "all varieties of clobbering of language, spelling, grammar" may also be something we should talk about and consider - not just "bad" words. Another thought was that given the adding of links upon links upon comments, it probably just isn't practical to "police" and make sure that within a link or 2 of a corporate website, one couldn't find "bad" words. Both are really good thoughts.

I have to admit that I am perhaps more of a "blink" writer and write my blog much like I speak or write an informal e-mail. I probably don't pay as much attention to spelling and grammar as I should. On my internal blog someone even pointed out that in my position in marketing communications I should be MUCH more careful about spelling and grammar. (I had a big ugly typo in the headline of my internal blog - which yes, I did go in and edit).

I'm not sure where I will land on this. I will probably be a bit more careful with typos in the future. However... when I choose a person to blog for my company, one of my major requirements is that they be a "good, interesting, entertaining" writer. I think I have found a good person for the On Demand Business site in Todd Watson. Let me know what you think.

Thanks for checking in with me.

IBM Corporate blogging program growing

2005-07-29T11:19:00.000-04:00

I don't think I've ever seen anything quite like it. I think companies should take note and examine why this is happening. What am I talking about? I have found that to get a program rolling out in a big corporation often takes some high level muscle. I am finding the opposite to be true with blogging.

I wrote a few weeks ago about the Blog Enablement Day we held that had a really great response. I guess a lot of seeds were planted. Next week our Americas team is taking the content, information and knowledge and bringing it to a larger Americas geography team. I have been asked to host a similar Blog Day for our marketing communications teams in Asia Pacific and with other teams in IBM. The interesting part is that the pressure isn't coming from above, it is viral, person to person - a ground swell movement.

From a sociological perspective, why did this program catch on when I've seen other great ideas and programs that didn't? Any thoughts?

Thanks for checking in with me.

Bad words on corporate web sites

2005-07-22T16:03:00.000-04:00

I just read a link on our IBM internal website.

The search for influential bloggers
The holy grail among marketers: the development of tools that efficiently and quickly unearth influential blogs or blog discussions. [BusinessWeek Blogspotting]

When I read the above article from BusinessWeek Blogspotting, I was a bit surprised to find the word &*%^%% well you will have to read the article for yourself to find out what the word is.

I know it is hard with all this linking etc. to read everything. We do something called the "Quickread" on the On Demand Business site and I remember learning the importance of reading every page of every one of the links in the Quickread which links out to other articles we found interesting. I learned the importance because one time I found the "F" word believe it or not in an article in one of the very respected major publishers sites.

So, I pose the question. How do we feel about having the word #$%(&&^^!!@ in an article that is a direct link from corporate pages? My view? I'm not a prude but I do get tired of hearing bad language on the streets - particularly when I'm out there with my daughter. Maybe some brands are more aligned to some rougher language but I think that a brand such as the one I work for IBM should probably be cautious. It just doesn't really suuport our brand.

Thanks for checking in with me.

Changing Agencies

2005-07-22T14:42:00.000-04:00

Have you ever tried to change a tire on a bus which moving down the road at 120 mph? Well this is exactly what I feel like I am in the middle of. In my past lives, I have moved my advertising from one agency to another and as painful as that was, it was nothing compared to this. Why is everything in the interactive space so much more painful? This is like moving a living breathing "thing", all it's processes and assets around the world educating an entire new set of people on all the content, process and assets on a global basis while continuing to make the living thing stay alive.

My main job is that I run the global On Demand Business website for IBM. A team in IBM decided to move IBM website communication from a great agency OgilvyOne to another great agency Digitas/EuroRSCG4D. I had a great experience with my Ogilvy partners and expect to have a great team at Digitas. When I looked at the OgilvyOne site to create this link though maybe that explains a bit about why people decided to make the switch. I see a lot about Ogilvy's advertising and advertising web landing experience pages and even a good deal about their direct marketing but I really don't see many examples of their site work. If I may brag a bit, I run one of the highest rated sites in IBM. O&M has been my incredible partner to get there. It is a great site but... it isn't showcased on their site. Someone out there may correct me if I'm wrong and I will be happy to stand corrected but I don't see it. On the other hand when I click on Digitas, while we aren't showcased "yet", it is immediately apparent that a core business for them is website communications.

So you may be wondering how this has anything to do with Blogging. A couple things. Sometimes I just find that the corporate world is still very advertising focused. This new marketing communications model really suggests a different model in the making. Web based, 2 way and multi-way communications etc. However if everything we try and do on the web is so complex and challenging, is it possible that we just can't get the senior people in our organizations who aren't working on the web interested in what we are doing? Do they just look at us and say... those people are always telling us how hard everything is. Why would I want to do more of it. But honestly it is more complex. So this is my rambling conundrum for this Friday afternoon.

Some things to ponder. Do you find interactive communications and web is more challenging than other forms of communication in your organization? Do you find that it is hard to get the attention, funding and resources for your interactive initiatives compared to other forms of communication? What does that mean in general for corporate blogging initiatives?

Thanks for checking in with me.

IBM Blogfest 2005

2005-07-15T15:19:00.000-04:00

I blogged my prior post from Blog Enablement Day we held at IBM for the marketing communications community a few days ago. I see I had a comment from one of the attendees (Welcome to the blogsosphere Lynn Porterfield). I was really very happy and even moved with the outpouring of positive comments we got from the attendees.

"Best conference I've been to in ages"... "Just wanted to say I think you did an AMAZING job today. It was educationsal, fun and best of all I don't think I've ever seen you happier - Congrats".

Wow... amazing what some kind words can do to the soul.

Towards the end of the conference we broke into groups to prepare strategies for the various business units. Some of the teams were more cautious... we are going to monitor for a bit to see what we want to do... but others were ready to go and get their subject matter experts on board and start some blogs. I think we planted a few seeds and even this week, I've seen some of them start to grow.

So, what is my recommendation to you if you are in a company and want to get some traction on blogging. 1) as with any project, you will probably want/need a senior exec who really gets it and is ready to push at the top. 2) go to a seminar or two your self (the AMA Blog Seminar is a great place to start) 3) Plan an education session. There is enough information out there on the web to enable you to pull together educational sessions on all the key points. Find people in your organization or even bring in some outside experts. I have included our agenda items in the event that would help you get organized.

Introduction to Blogging
IBM Blogging Guidelines
Factors That Determine a Successful Blog
RSS, Podcasting and other important new media tools
Case study of a blog on ibm.com
Case study of an IBMer blogging on a 3rd party site
Blog Metrics
Blogs & Search Engine Optimization
A case study of the GM Vice Chairman's blog
Monitoring Blogs for Market Intelligence
Breakout sessions to define your business unit blog strategy.

Thanks for checking in with me!

IBM Blog Enablement Day

2005-07-12T10:39:00.000-04:00

The day is finally here. I'm blogging from the IBM Blog Enablement Day program for marketing communications people across IBM. Despite some technical glitches in the very beginning things are going really well. Isn't that always the case... change in room that some people didn't note in the invite - we had to move to a larger room than we had originally planned, some people on the phone didn't get the presentations... so a small bump in the start but then we got on really solid footing after just a few minutes. The presentations have been really great. I kicked it off, our VP of Advertising spoke as did our Director of Global Interactive - Eric Seibert. David Berger a big internal blogger from our Corporate Communications organization gave a great presentation and now speaking is BL Ochman from What's next on line.

Check out the photo. Marco Pereira IBM, Sher Taton IBM and BL Ochman and Susan Lorenz from OgilvyOne, . It's a good day, we are having fun.

Presenting blogging to Corporate Attorneys

2005-07-08T00:12:00.000-04:00

I presented blogging and blogging strategy to a group of the IBM legal community today. I made them promise not to bring in sharp objects to the meeting. For a lot of reasons, blogging makes corporate attorneys very nervous. They actually turned out to be a really good group to present to. They were interested, asked a lot of questions and as always, I think they will be good partners for us on our blogging efforts.

I received an interesting article today from David Levy of Digitas. It was an article from ITSMA e-zine about navigating the blogsphere. It states a lot of the things that I believe... "For those marketers hesitant to jump in or unconvinced that blogging is more than just a fad, consider the last ten years of the Web itself, which transformed incredibly quickly from techie and teen plaything to business essential. Blogging is likely another example of a tech development that is over-hyped in the short run but underestimated in the long.

As customers, journalists, and others increasingly tune out one-way pronouncements in favor of community-based dialogue, marketers will ignore the blogosphere at their peril. Already we're seeing many in the media ignoring email and Websites in favor of personalized information feeds from the blogs they deem useful. No doubt we're still in early days, and the particulars of blogging will continue to grow and change. But there should be little doubt that a more participatory approach to marketing is taking hold, with blogging assuming a prominent place in that new approach. Learning to navigate the blogosphere is fast becoming a requirement for marketing success."

I am leading a blog enablement day next week for marketing communications professionals at IBM and I think this is really the heart of the message. We are all so busy these days just trying to do the considerable work we have in front of us that it is really easy to forget to look up once in a while and see what is happening around us. I really believe that the way we do marketing and marketing communications is in the middle of a powerful shift and that many people are so busy they are going to join the movement later than they should.

So .... step away from the computers, look around you... take a minute to think about this shift from marketing "brochure ware" to how marketing needs to begin to really engage with customers and have intelligent 2 way conversations. Given that premise, should you continue to do things as you have been or maybe consider trying a new or different approach.

The question of the day... if you weren't so busy doing what you do, what would you do instead?

Thanks for checking in with me.

New Employee Blogging Benefit

2005-07-06T09:42:00.000-04:00

First a big thank you for your comments... Ian - some really interesting thoughts. In fact, I'm looking at this more from the perspective of creating a "company's" blog strategy more than my own personal blog strategy. You gave me an interesting thought. Perhaps in the future one "employee benefit" may be that an employer or potential employer promises not to kill your blog regardless of your employment with them or at least promoses to move you and provide a link to the new site if you leave their employment. I know in thinking of company strategy it has occurred to me that when bringing the voices of subject matter experts (SME) as bloggers onto the company external web, I've thought about what would happen if said SME changes jobs within the company, no longer wants to blog or leaves the company. My thoughts have been that since the blogger is primarily blogging about a subject that they "could" potentially be replaced by another SME or maybe you shut that blog down and offer visitors some other blogs they could visit with similar content or maybe from the start, you do group blogs so that if one blogger wants out the entire blog isn't hurt. Well - just some of my thoughts. What do you think?

Thanks for checking in with me.
Sher Taton

Blog Strategy Hosting blogs on company site or 3rd party site

2005-07-01T11:27:00.000-04:00

I've already broken the rules.

It has been 6 days since I last made an entry so I've already broken one of the cardinal rules of blogging. You must make frequent blog entries. I've been really busy - really! I'm in the middle of a global team reorganization, I'm moving my entire On Demand Business site from one agency to another, I'm doing blog evangelism around IBM and organizating Blog Enablement Day for Marketing Communications professionals, while keeping the site fresh and interesting and pulling together what I believe is the first business blogs for IBM on ibm.com

Speaking of this, one of the key thoughts I've had in my mind lately is the pro and con of hosting blogs on your own URL. I've come up with a short list but would love to hear some comments on this.

Advantages to building on your company URL:
1) You already have time and money invested in building traffic - if you put them on site outside you will have to work to develop traffic to a new location.
2) Blogs can help with your organic search or Search Engine Optimization of your site
3) Blogs provide new, timely and updated content to your site thus providing more content to your readers and giving them reasons to return frequently.

Disadvantages to building on your company URL.
1) You have to build the blogging capability into your infrastructure where as it is easily available outside.
2) Possibly increased legal exposure for the company?
3) A blogger on your company URL may be considered a company "shill" whereas if they are on an external URL, even though identified with your company they may be considered to have a more "neutral" voice.

What do you think? I would really like some thoughts on this.

Thanks for checking in with me.

IBM blogvangelist

2005-06-25T13:25:00.000-04:00

Ok - everything seems to be in order.

Why a blog now? I've been a blogvangelist for a while but my interest has been more in strategy, sharing, learning, teaching, producing... and not so much in creating my own blog. I have been blogging inside of IBM but I've now decided to blog outside. I really have to credit (or blame) 2 people and one event for that decision. Toby aka Marketing Diva and Rick Short with Indium and the AMA Blogging Conference in Boston.

In working on blogging for IBM I had been noodling with thoughts about how to find the right people the right voice to blog for IBM on my IBM On Demand Business website. The 4P's of marketing came to mind and I had come up with a list of 3 of the 4 P's (four P's, 4Ps, four ps) for blogging - Personality, Perseverance and Passion. While talking at the conference, Rick supplied an excellent 4th P - Point or Purpose... well see for yourself in Rick's explanation. In the wonk after the conference, Toby said I should really try external blogging. So, here I am. Following my own 4P rule, we will see if I do indeed have the passion for actually blogging OR if my passion is behind the scenes as a producer, educator, director etc.

In the meantime, let me put in a plug for the conference. I feel pretty "buttoned up" in my blogging knowledge and the AMA blogging conference was a great experience. It is a great conference for the beginner and for people who have already started the blogging journey. Find the time, find the money and find the conference when it comes to a city near you.

Thanks for checking in with me.

My first post

2005-06-25T13:18:00.000-04:00

My first post should be poetic or briliant or something. However until I'm sure this is working correctly I don't want to work that hard.