Posted on 08/23/2004 1:48:27 AM PDT by AdmSmith
Isn't it interesting that some of the most significant 'revolutions' of the last twenty years have all had to do with writing? How retro is that? First we had email, then webpages, then mobile phone texting, and now blogs. All this reflects a trend whereby the world is becoming more formal in how it communicates. Instead of body language and endless conversations, communication has shifted towards endless words on a screen.
Bloggers are people with attitude. They say there's a book inside everybody. Well, the Web and blogs have let the book out! There has literally been an explosion of opinion. Traditionally, public relations was about honing a silvery message that communicated exactly what the organization wanted us to hear. Now, we can hear all sorts of voices on the subject. It's true democracy at work.
The advantages of blogs from an organizational perspective include the following:
1) The consumer and citizen are potentially better informed and this can only be good for the long-term health of our societies and economies.
2) Blogs have potential to help the organization develop stronger relationships and brand loyalty with its customers, as they interact with the 'human face' of the organization through blogs.
3) Blogs, in an intranet environment, can be an excellent way of sharing knowledge within the organization.
4) Blogs can be a positive way of getting feedback, and keeping your finger on the pulse, as readers react to certain pieces, suggest story ideas, etc.
5) Blogs can build the profile of the writer, showcasing the organization as having talent and expertise.
The disadvantages of blogs are:
1) Most people don't have very much to say that's interesting, and/or are unable to write down their ideas in a compelling and clear manner.
2) I have often found that the people who have most time to write have least to say, and the people who have most to say don't have enough time to write it. Thus, the real expertise within the organization lays hidden, as you get drowned in trivia.
3) Like practically everything else on the Web, blogs are easy to start and hard to maintain. Writing coherently is one of the most difficult and time-consuming tasks for a human being to undertake. So, far from blogs being a cheap strategy, they are a very expensive one, in that they eat up time. As a result, many blogs are not updated, thus damaging rather than enhancing the reputation of the organization.
4) Organizations are not democracies. The Web makes many organizations look like disorganizations, with multiple tones and opinions. Contrary to what some might think, the average customer prefers it if the organization they are about to purchase from is at least somewhat coherent.
There's money in words; real value, real worth. I'm not a blogger but I do have this newsletter and I can tell you that these 500 or so words that I publish every week have seen a major return on investment for me.
As an individual, I would highly recommend that you have some sort of publishing strategy, whether it be a blog, newsletter, writing articles for magazines, website or whatever. This is an age where you will build your professional reputation word by word. Start off by finding something people care about and that you care about.
The Swifties bet the farm on the blogosphere, talk radio, and Fox News.
Hugh Hewitt combines talk radio and blogging. Here are his recommendations for must read blogs for the Kerry Suicide Watch:
If you want a primer on John Kerry's Kurtz Chronicles, read on, clicking on the links as you go. It should take you about a half hour to read all the links, and you will then be light years ahead of every major newspaper in America. Begin with:
Michael Barone's new column in U.S. News & World Report;
this column which originally appeared in the Minneapolis Star Tribune;
this column from the New York Post;
this column from the Wall Street Journal;
and this article and this article from The Weekly Standard.
My previous posts on the subject that add information not easily available elsewhere are here, here, and here. For comprehensive coverage of the whoppers Kerry told about Vietnam and continues to refuse to either defend or recant, keep returning here, and to Instapundit, KerrySpot, Powerline, Captain's Quarters, JustOneMinute, OneHandClapping, RogerLSimon, The American Thinker, Beldar, and Polipundit.
Eventually, when the failure of the Main Stream Media can no longer be denied, it will go the way of the buggy whip manufacturer, and be replaced by something that evolves from this medium I am addressing you on right now.
Free Republic is the transmission which harnesses the separate horsepower outputs of the many blogs.
Without FR, almost nobody besides a few isolated wonks would have ever heard of these blogs, and the MSM could have continued to ignore them.
blogping
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just couldn't past it up.
This seems to be an analysis of a very narrow section of the blogosphere, confining itself to those within "organizations." Not sure exactly what kind of organization is implied here.
But in any case, I can think of very very few "organization" blogs that I pay any attention to (NRO's "The Corner" is the only one I can think of). The interesting ones out there seem to be personal blogs.
Personal blogs stand or fall on their own merits. People either read them, or not. And the writers either maintain them, or they don't. There's very little harm done when they fail, and much good done when they succeed.
We'd better be carefull or this thread will go to blogger land. I personally do visit too many blogs, I much prefer sites like FR where the fruits of Freeper research are deposited in one place, makes for easy reading and discussion.
do visit = don't visit
I let the hardcore dig through the blogs. All of the interesting stuff arrives on FR withing an hour.
Thanks for the ping and interesting links!
"No man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money." --Samuel Johnson
Well, it can be good practice, and can help to establish a reputation. For example, I think that in ten years freeper Wretchard will be as well known as Mark Steyn, Ralph Peters or Victor Davis Hanson, on the initial strength of his blog.
I hope you're right. Anyway, I consider you and VDH to both be professional writers. Wretchard, who admits to writing without compensation, makes an impact on the free world with his ideas. So I was criticizing myself with that quote :)
I, I understood it, and I don't mind it. Maybe you could say bloggers are "interning" as writers?
Very true, but it sure beats that incestuous PC nest, the MSM!
Even if we tend to reinforce ideas simply on the basis of whatever the latest hive definition of what patriotism is, facts are stubborn. I've seen many a thread here shot down after someone posts a graph, a map, or a simple counter argument that refutes its core premise.
None of that is possible on a SEEBS or ABC broadcast.
Yep, the MSM is a dinosaur watching the big internet comet come down.
Eventually, when the failure of the Main Stream Media can no longer be denied, it will go the way of the buggy whip manufacturer, and be replaced by something that evolves from this medium I am addressing you on right now.
Sorry, Pal....the lamestream boys are already toast.
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