The Business Soul

Posted by Todd at June 14th, 2006

On June 10, 2006, the rumor of Robert Scoble’s departure from Microsoft started to spread.  You could almost hear the keyboards of geeks around the globe typing their own mini-ebooks on why he was leaving and the vast communications blackhole that would form following his departure to PodTech.
As a corporate communications blogger, Robert Scoble has achieved hyperlinked-celebrity status as perhaps the most popular text and audio blogger online.  (Note: Amanda Congdon over at Rocket Boom is still IMHO the top video blogger with advertisers paying her $85,000 a week – according to rumors.)  Robert has pioneered a process for how employees can blog and more importantly how they create connections.  The end result is a connection continuum that can generate goodwill and affinity as well as disdain and frustration between corporations, employees, and customers. It’s a relationship.  And, based on the stories being circulated, Robert was an active partner in his relationships online and off.
Robert’s views, opinions and experiences were honest and his honesty generated connections that were trusted and respected.  Perhaps we should just stop calling blogging blogging.  It’s participation. It’s collaboration. It’s connecting.  It’s relationships. Plain and simple.
The relationship void is likely to occur. And, the obvious question of who will replace Scoble is likely bouncing from private executive office to conference room and back with each meeting starting with the question “What do we do now?”
And, the obvious answer to that question seems to be don’t stop.   Microsoft, according to a recent interview Robert had with Vice President of Corporate Strategy, Alex Gounares, is that there is no intention to get off the blog train anytime soon.  Check this out:
“He says that they are seeing so many good things come out of the blogging movement inside the company that they’d be stupid to try to slow it down.”
The relationship issue will eventually be the biggest barrier that Microsoft will face as it attempts to reach out and build new relationships will the people that have followed Scoble’s blog and the simple solution is to simply not to even try to anoint some new employee as Scoble 2.0.  Whoever comes forward or selected will have to find their own links, comments, trackbacks, and tags to make the connections meaningful.  (Note to Bill Gates: interesting opportunity to have a video going away and good luck party for Robert as well as a change for Mr. Gates himself to jump feet first into the blog movement and carry the torch for a while.)
So, here are my armchair quarterback recommendations that corporate communications team can apply to their own collaboration and feedback programs (blogging):

1. Get Links.  Five-years ago, Robert Scoble was invisible just like most corporate communication programs are today.  Scoble focused on doing two things – IMHO – that helped him generate awareness and deepen relationships.  First, he reached to others and started dialoging to inserting himself into the conversation of the day.  Second, he generated links to support indexing and ranking of his content.

2. Get Fragmented.  There are plenty of Microsoft bloggers.  Many of just simply know Scoble’s blog because the content is more general in terms of subject matter and thus more familiar to a larger audience.  His topics cover a wide range of professional and personal subjects.  And having a general interest publishing platform is great.  But the real secret is going after a niche.  Specialized blog content from Microsoft employees like Rich Schaut and Bob Rebholz provide MSFT with a unique platform and that’s just the start. 

3. Get Profiled.  The challenge many corporate communication professionals are going to face is how to generate a foundation of interest around the collaboration tool the organization is using.  There are a number of mechanisms and techniques but the most overlooked is simply creating a profile in various directories that are indexing content.

4. Get Going.  The hardest and easiest thing to do is to put finger tips to keyboard – at least for me – which is why I’m going to video blog in the coming weeks, and we can chat more about that later.  So, let me qualify the “Get Going” element by noting you’ve got to figure out what’s important to you first.  Don’t try to spin the content to sell.  It’s going to cause you more grief than you can imagine. 

5. Get People on Board.  Internal technical restraints are likely to cause a few headaches and I’m talking about the IT team banning or blocking access to certain file formats inside the organization.  Any “blog” plan should include sign-off from team members in the IT department or you may be shutdown before you even get going.  A prospective client was telling me the other day how their IT team had blocked all MP3 files which kinda makes audio clips a bit of a challenge.

6. Get Outside.  If you’re facing internal roadblocks, do what Robert did: use an open source tool and avoid the internal political mine fields (maybe too rough of a word) but the point here is that there are always alternatives.

7. Get Out of The Way: The content your employees will create on their blogs is going their content and not the firm’s.  In fact, I recommend you consider joining Attention Trust and follow their framework for interest mobility and ownership but simply apply it to blogging. 

8. Get Diverse. Don’t rely on text as the only publishing format for distributing content. 

TAGS: Robert Scoble, Rich Schaut, Bob Rebholz, Microsoft, Blogging, Collaboration, Amanda Congdon, Rocket Boom, Corporate Communications, PodTech

Posted by Todd at June 14th, 2006

This blog - The Business Soul — is an ongoing exploration of the practice of corporate communications.  Our aim — and I say “our aim” from the standpoint that there will likely be many different voices contributing to this project — is to try to avoid using technobabble and instead focus on tips and techniques that corporate communications professionals can use to design internal and external coporate communications programs.  In addition, we’ll examine corporate communication practices by using case study methods as well as interviews with pioneers that are forging new paths to enhance productivity and quality of work, building worker loyalty to the firm, and most importantly, increasing individual and organizational performance to achieve business results.

To help us achieve this goal, we need to hear from you.  Your insights.  Your experience.  Your tips and challenges.  Your comments and feedback.  So, please feel free to comment on any post or if you have a breaking story or story idea please email me directly at todd at boldmouth dot com. 

In terms of full disclosure, the saying “be careful what you wish for” holds true for this project. As a consultant to Black Star, I had proposed that the firm start blogging as a way to share their expertise in the corporate communications arena and, to specifically show coporate communication professionals how new communications tools can be used to enhance their work and deepen relationships with communities of interest.  Black Star decided to hire me for this project and, everything I post here, though, is my personal opinion and is not read or approved before it is posted. No warranties or other guarantees will be offered as to the quality of the opinions or anything else offered here.

Posted by John P. Chapnick at June 13th, 2006

Stay tuned for more on corporate podcasts.

Posted by John P. Chapnick at June 8th, 2006

Welcome to The Business Soul blog, where we focus on humanity in corporate communications.