Issue 2 
I would like to ask you a few questions. How many of you have your own blog? Amazing how many just in this small room are doing their own blog. How many of your organizations have a written policy on blogs? How many of you read at least one blog a day? WOW.
There are very few people these days who don’t know a thing about Web logs. By one new estimate, there are more than 20 million, some say as high as 24 million blogs, and every day another 10,000 are created. And blog readership, by one estimate, jumped 68 percent in 2005.
No wonder more and more businesses are interested in tapping blogs and more Internet seers expect them to have a major impact on business. Indeed, there are some great benefits to blogs – as well as some distinct drawbacks.
Let me tell you the story of how blogs recently hit home for me. My 10-year-old son Trevor wanted to buy an Xbox360, the latest video game wonder toy as you know, and he was ready to head to the store. But he first read in a favorite blog of his that the initial owners of the Xbox360 were experiencing problems and they said, “Why don’t you hold off getting your 360 until they work out the glitches?” And this 10-year-old boy had read enough that he decided he didn’t want it on his Christmas list anymore. That’s a good example even at the smallest levels at what’s been happening. That blogs can have a major impact on the word-of-mouth effect.
For the most part, bloggers are giving us real-world expertise, some insights and, consequently, they are having an increasingly important role in peer-to-peer influence. But despite the great power of blogs and the real-time market value of their contents, there are a very, very limited
Somewhere, current estimates are only about 3 to 4 percent of all companies have formalized their blogging policies. This probably isn’t too surprising on a number of different levels because it always takes longer for corporations to catch up with the pundits in the big things. New-media consultant and blogger Debbie Weil says the No. 1 reason corporations aren’t embarking on blogs is fear. The fear of being open, of two-way conversation, of not being able to control the message, and fear of the time commitment.
What is clear to me on so many different levels is that the ability to communicate to different people in different ways in different regions is over. The days when companies have a choice of whether to be transparent in their communications are over. The days when you could operate and provide your customers without unquestionable quality, performance and service and expect to get away with it are over. It’s changing the way we do business.
In many ways, this refreshing new communications reminds me of my favorite line from the movie “As Good As It Gets” with Jack Nicholson and Helen Hunt. Nicholson, playing the eccentric romance novelist Melvin Udall, explains why he likes the single-mother waitress, played by Miss Hunt. “I like you because you make me want to be a better man,” he says.
In many ways, blogging is having a very similar impact on companies. It is forcing companies to be better companies. They have to believe that their every move is being scrutinized because it is. So, if indeed this is our Brave New World, I hope that from this panel discussion today, you will get some great insights:
- What are the upsides of a company blog?
- Why should your organization launch one?
- How do you begin a company blog?
- Who do you put in charge of it?
- Is a blog policy essential?
- How do you handle what I call “determined detractors,” those bloggers with the ability to slam your blog and damage your company’s reputation and create ill will?
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