There was a lot to take in during the conference yesterday, but I thought I would blog on some interesting topics that are still floating around in my head.

Blogging as a business tool

I very much believe that blogs are a positive force in the business world. I am always amazed when I hear of the resistance to blogging from corporations, either in starting their own blog or in trying to shut down employees who dare to mention their name. It seems so silly to me.

If you don’t want a blog about your company or by someone in your company, you are basically saying you don’t want to talk with your customers, your potential customers, or the greater community of stakeholders to whom you are responsible. How stupid does that sound??

Ok, so I get the resistance to change. It is like someone knocking on your door and saying that all those millions of dollars you have been spending on advertising and traditional marketing has gone to crap. It doesn’t work anymore. We all know this has been happening for some time now. The effectiveness of television advertising has been on a steady decline for years. With TiVo, fast forward, or our basic brain filtering gained through years of tv viewing, ads just don’t work anymore. We don’t listen. So, the standard protocol has been to make ads louder, more flashy, and more in your face. So we turn our face and leave the room. Big deal. We get used to it. So ads go up in more places. Are we watching? Not really.

Now, marketing is not dead. If it were, I would be out of a job and a career. It’s just changing. Look at Apple. What they did was amazing. There was a whole bunch of build up and a big wait. Word of mouth was already spreading about the iPod and how cool it was. It was being used in more and more ways. We were ready when Apple dumped a whole bunch of new products on the market at the same time. It wasn’t the fancy iPod commercial that won us over, it was word of mouth. Blogging is the new word of mouth. For how many days and weeks did we all fawn over the iPod Shuffle or the Mac Mini?

So, where am I going with this? Basically, I agree with the mantra that you must BLOG or DIE. Very much so. If a business does not a) listen to blogs (as Scoble advises very very strongly) and b) let its employees be its voice in the blogosphere, it will die. The world does not want to deal with companies whose doors are not open. Blogging is a way, as Tim Bray noted, to develop street credibility for businesses.

Sometimes you have to share a little, but really you are telling your customers that you care about what they say (hey, blogging is an open tool - comments are an integral part!) and actually take what they say into new services and product developments. But you can also own up to your mistakes. Be real. Take responsibility for your actions. It’s a bit of a scary move, especially if your corporate culture has been rather closed (imagine Coca Cola with a blog!) or you have a bad reputation with customer service (sorry, but Telus does come to mind).

My advice, if you don’t think you can handle the blogging on your own, then write up a policy like over at Sun Microsystems and tell your employees they can write about you. Let them be your face. It worked for Microsoft.

If you are a small business or a new business trying to make your place in the world, blogging is your best tool out there. You can set it up almost instantly. Posting new entries is a whole world easier than writing a website. You can even pick designs (with care) freely from places such as Blogger.com. I have witnessed what a small blog, updated fairly often with the given insight that comes when you work in an industry, can do for a small business that operates globally. If you ever want any advice or help setting up, just contact me. I’d be happy to help.