Blog or Die

Robert Scobel is one of the most famous bloggers in the country, bringing a human face to Microsoft and becoming arguably the second most famous Microsoft employee after Bill Gates.

He and Shel Israel are collaborating on a business blogging book called The Red Couch, though I like the title of the first chapter he has put up on the net for review far better, Blog or Die.  If only I could write as well or as compellingly.  Here are some excerpts.

Blogging is one of those “somethings.” It is vital and strategic to the future of business. Some who ignore this fact will face the same fate as the village blacksmith of the last century.

How can this communications mechanism be so damned important? Five years ago, it was dismissed as the purview of lonely diarists, the politically obsessed or the technologically zealous. Today, blogging has become the most rapidly adopted technology in history. Today, in February 2005, 40,000 new blogs will start. By the time you read this book, that number is likely to be much higher. More than 10 percent of all Americans read blogs, an increase of 60 percent in 12 months, according to Pew Research.
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[B]logging is necessary. It is necessary because it gives companies and constituencies direct interaction between each other. It is necessary because the other communications tools—press releases, ads, banners, websites, brochures, PowerPoint presentations are all irreparably broken. People neither believe nor trust the slickness of corporate materials and spokespeople.
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The result is blogging has become the best way for your company to get attention, promote product adoption, get press coverage and build loyal customer bases. Businesses are made smarter by receiving the kind of direct, candid feedback that focus groups and market research surveys rarely succeed in providing. Blogging is the best way to listen to what the market is saying about you. Letting employees blogs is a superior way to show you trust them.
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To not blog today can find you facing the same fate as the village blacksmith of the last century. Ask a leading bike lock manufacturer who ignored posting on how his product could be picked, or a Silicon Valley computer games maker who didn’t pay attention to posted complaints of employee abuse or Dan Rather who stuck to his guns not realizing they were pointed at him.
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Blogs have come to prominence just when so much else has failed. Today, they are the best way to
make your company more profitable, grow faster, or get your product more rapidly adopted. They are a kinder, gentler, more polite and therefore more effective way to reach people who matter to your company.