Category: business blogs

Whereas the Maven business blogs typically are written at a high level, cover a broad industry, and oftentimes do not overly associate the business blogger with the organization they are with, the “Do-er” blogs dive to a deeper level. In some ways, these types of business blogs could be thought of as a more narrowcast version of the Maven blog, concentrating on a particular area of expertise within a particular organization.

A number of large organizations – Sun, HP, and others – allow (or even encourage) developers to write about their area of expertise. Sun, in fact, has dozens, and maybe even hundreds, of bloggers writing about different detailed aspects of the organization. Although in Sun’s case, President Jonathan Schwartz has the largest number of hits on his blog (about 4,300 recent hits), the number of views by readers of the Sun Do-er blogs, in aggregate, outstrip his reach by at least 10:1. (And that’s just looking down the first 65 employee blogs at Sun…the actual number is probably much higher. Weren’t we just talking about this?) HP is testing out this strategy as well, but to date has taken a more cautious stance, with only a handful of Do-er blogs.

It is extremely important to note, however, that Do-er blogs in particular are not restricted to the high-tech industry. In fact, some of the most interesting stories and insight from down in the trenches comes from areas outside of high-tech. There are a number of medical professionals who are blogging about detailed topics, as well as individuals from midsize and even small companies in areas such as automotive repair and home improvement.

“Do-er” example #1

Blogger: Bryan Cantrill (middle)
Role: Solaris Kernel Development
Company: Sun Microsystems
Blog Location: http://blogs.sun.com/roller/page/bmc/20050125

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“Do-er” example #2

Blogger: Archie Reed
Role: Secure Identity Management
Company: HP
Blog Location: http://devresource.hp.com/blogs/reed/

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“Do-er” example #3

Blogger: Ivan Best
Role: Proprietor
Company: PickupSpecialties.com
Blog Location: http://pickupspecialties.blogspot.com/

Continuing our series on customer relationships and business blogging, we’re now to where the rubber meets the road. Today, we’ve a couple of particularly salient examples where business blogging engages directly with the customer in order to better drive the direction of the organization. Enter the “Customer Advocate” business blog.

Customer advocate blogs (or advocate-styled posts within a larger, more general blog) are those that expressly engage directly with the customer, solicit feedback, answer direct customer questions, and generally reach out and act as a bridge between customers, their concerns and suggestions, and the organization.

When done well, customer advocate blogs will communicate full-circle, and follow the following steps:

1) Engage the conversation – Ensure that customers have a mechanism for providing feedback, suggestions, needs, wants, and the like.

2) Distill and group the feedback – Many of the feedback items may be around similar topics. Group those together and handle them in aggregate.

3) Determine your own prioritization mechanism – All feedback items are not the same. How will your organization decide which ones to address, and by when?

4) Report back – Let the customers know what’s going on. The customers took the time to share their thoughts…what is being done with them? This is the step that is often overlooked.

5) Get to closure – When things are done, let customers know. Don’t let the feedback mechanism be a black hole. If enough suggestions are submitted that don’t seem to result in feedback or action, customers are going to stop participating the conversation.

“Customer Advocate” example #1

Blogger: John Dowdell
Role: Support
Company: Macromedia
Blog Location: http://www.markme.com/jd/archives/006722.cfm

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“Customer Advocate” example #2

Blogger: Robert Scoble
Role: Technical Evangelist
Company: Microsoft
Blog Location: http://radio.weblogs.com/0001011/2005/01/06.html#a9118

(n.b. I’ve notes into both John and Robert, explicitly asking for followup on what their respective organizations are going to do with the feedback and suggestions they’ve received, per point (4) above…this post will be updated as responses arrive)

Update:

(31Jan2005) John has responded in the comments. Thanks for the quick response!

“Maven” blogs (the maven moniker shamelessly stolen from the Malcolm Gladwell book The Tipping Point) are business blogs that highlight an individual’s expertise in a particular area.

Contrast these to the “Tour Guide” blogs mentioned earlier in this series. Where the tour guides are showing an inside view of the company, the mavens are putting their expertise out there for readers to discover. Want to know about the latest trends in PR? You’ll likely trip across Steve Rubel in short order. Want to know about wikis and collaboration? Ross Mayfield is your man.

The most interesting thing about the maven business bloggers is that, typically, the blogs are centered around a business area or concept, and are not focused on the blogger’s employer or associated organization. Instead of being directly tied to the corporation, the blog is tied to the individual. The assumption is, if you are an expert in your field and provide a reason for readers to frequent your blog, then you will be “top of mind” when a particular reader is looking for someone to help him or her with a particular business need in a related area at some time in the future. Most of the examples of mavens shown here are in “services”-oriented fields — PR, marketing, consulting, etc. — areas where the individual’s ability to contribute has a direct impact on the final result of an effort.

“Maven” example #1

Blogger: Steve Rubel
Area of Expertise: PR
Company: CooperKatz
Blog Location: http://www.micropersuasion.com

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“Maven” example #2

Blogger: Johnnie Moore
Area of Expertise: Marketing & Branding
Company: The Clarity Partnership
Blog Location: http://www.johnniemoore.com

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“Maven” example #3

Blogger: Carolyn Elefant
Area of Expertise: Solos and small law firms
Company: The Law Offices of Carolyn Elefant
Blog Location: http://www.myshingle.com

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“Maven” example #4

Blogger: Russell Beattie
Area of Expertise: Mobile Technology
Company: Independent consultant
Blog Location: http://www.russellbeattie.com

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“Maven” example #5

Blogger: Ross Mayfield
Area of Expertise: Wikis and collaborative technologies
Company: SocialText
Blog Location: http://ross.typepad.com

“Recommender” blogs (commonly known as “link blogs”) are not designed to be a destination in and of themselves, but are instead a resource for readers of a particular business blogger. One can almost think of these types of blogs as reviews or, as the name suggests, recommendations of items that the blogger believes will be of interest to his or her readers. In contrast to almost all of the other types of business blogs, Recommender blogs oftentimes do not contain commentary on or visibility into the company for which the blogger works. Rather, the blogger becomes a resource for his or her readership and, as a side effect, brings more attention to the organization for which the blogger works.

“Recommender” example #1

Blogger: Jeremy Zawodny
Role: Platform Engineering
Company: Yahoo!
Blog Location: http://jeremy.zawodny.com/linkblog/

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“Recommender” example #2

Blogger: Robert Scoble
Role: Technical Evangelist
Company: Microsoft
Blog Location: http://www.scobleizer.com/linkblog/

“Tour Guide” blogs are the ones that give a glimpse into the company. Not unlike an actual physical plant tour, this type of blog gives a “behind the scenes” glimpse into the goings-on of the corporate machinery. Sometimes they cover current events at the organization, introduce the reader to some of the members of the company, or highlight particular products or items of note. All this talk of transparency for the customer? Tour guide blogs are a start.

“Tour Guide” example

Blogger: Noah Acres
Role: Director of Sales and Marketing
Company: Bigha
Blog Location: http://www.bigha.com/blog/index.php

Think of this as our little safari into the wilds of the blogosphere. An expedition to create an initial taxonomy of business blogger species, if you will.

There have been lots of folks who have done the “what is business blogging” thing. What I haven’t seen, however, is a good description of the different ways that companies are using blogs at the point of interaction with the customer. There seem to be a few:

• The Tour Guide
• The Recommender
• The Maven
• The Customer Advocate
• The Do-er
• The CEO Blog

Over the next few posts, we’ll take a look at each of these in more detail.

And another thing. Some of these will now be podcast as well. You can subscribe to the feed right…up…there if you want.