I just got done listening to the “Blogging in Business” session from BloggerCon, being held at Harvard this weekend.

You can see my notes under the extended entry. The notes are rough and I have bracketed a couple of things to represent my added thoughts.

Update: Here is the wiki Jeff Jarvis set-up as a starting point for the session.

Todd’s note from “Blogging in Business” @ BloggerCon

used as internal tool for supply chain with 2nd and 3rd tier engineers

growing trend

only 100 good business blogs. [is it really widespread] Check out businessblogconsulting.com.

corporations are still afraid of what rank and file will say

ex. large foundation passwords certain content, local biotech

lawyers – will the lawyer represent the firm, will this water down the content?

marketers are trained to manage the message – blogs are not that

how do you make money doing that? – ex. radio company didn’t the web page

who is trusted to speak for the organization? Media interviews happen now with people within the organization

3 things that make a blog:
comments
unedited
quick checking of facts and correction – strikethrough function common

possible freedom and responsibility are your marketing message with blog

****one company is aggregating problems from RSS feeds that are potential customer problems and commenting on how they can solve them [very clever].

companies have websites, but they still suck. How can we expect blogs will work?

blogs are peer to peer communication tools. They can work as well for 25 people as 10 million people

businesses are still wary of peer to peer communication. [Consider what Napster did?] The effects have been generally negative.

lots of internal blogs, not so many external blogs. It will take 5 years for external blogs to become widespread

most companies should blog, but most won’t. Sony and fan pages

Channel 9 is separate from the Microsoft brand, great place for unstructured conversation

blogging is bi-directional communication

****narrow-casting – how can key individuals talk to specific communities. Not the ABC corporation, but I am the product manager of ABC, I would like your help.

Great advantage for small companies, normally have small budget and leverage able to leverage simple tool for low cost

Important Social implications, you can say things on blogs that you can’t say otherwise. [that will change]

blogging is about reputation building, blogs make people more interesting.

could small business blogging eventually build an ebay for services?

blogging as a 24 hour rhythm – works well for project management