July 21, 2005

Not Just Any Corporate Blogging White Paper

Who better to tell the corporate blogging story than us? By us, I mean we bloggers who have been working in large, multi-national corporations, middle market companies, small firms, two-person startups, or out on our own, while nudging the blogworld into form over the last several years.

I've said before, when it comes to the intersection of business and blogging, one thing that makes this intersection point important for business is that we are typically people who work, have worked, and/or will work somewhere--some business, some place, whether it's IBM or the Harley Davidson shop on North Oak in Kansas City.

We are people first. We connect as people, but also delight in discovering those things we are passionate about, including what it is that we "do." I'm not saying that this is blogging's value. But it's part of how blogging can help businesses better understand and move closer to their markets.

And these relationships continue to grow. It has been one of the most rewarding parts of blogging for me during the last 5 years, both personally and professionally, to have met and learned from some mighty minds.

Those learnings are reflected, at least a little bit, here.

The bottom line is, blogging gives business an opportunity to shrink the distance between its front doors and ours.

Why go on and on. It looks a lot prettier here:

To Blog or Not to Blog: Blogs Help Corporations Answer the Call to Conversation

from The Content Factor.

Note of thanks to Michael O'Connor Clarke, whose keen eye and, shall we say "zesty?" understating of this space were WAY valuable in getting this paper done.

A couple additional notes:

Not sure if the links inside the PDF are working--will be interested to know from you all.

The resource section at the end is something I want to put back into HTML and expand.

There are a lot of compendium of "must read" blogs, but when I started putting this paper together, I realized I needed a different kind of "blogroll" for it--and that is still emerging.

Because, as we know, everything is changing so friggin' fast. ;-)

Lemme know.

Thanks.