Bill Ives on Blog Excitement

Following the Jarvis post, I want to point to Bill Ives, who continues to write superior posts on the trends in blogs with a reach that extends to RSS and knowledge management.  It's always a pleasure to read this experienced, thoughtful and erudite writer.  His week end restaurant and music reviews aren't bad either.  He thinks and he links. 

Using content to create connections among people - Sales support people are using them to great success both internally for product issues and competitive intelligence and externally for customer support.

Adding syndicated content to your blog - New features all the time at the speed of light.

A great disclaimer and blog policy statement  An excerpt - "Don't come crying to me if you lose your job following my advice."

What's unique about blogs -bullet points.

And best of all - his seven part series on Why all the Excitement about Blogs in Business.

Part One - Offering a partial antidote to ever exploding content.  Blogs bring a filter, they aggregate content and bring context and personal meaning.  A simple means to provide users with new levels of control.

Part Two -Reducing the Clogging of the Communication Channels.  Bypassing email, spam, and groups to offer news and updates the reader chooses in a form that's easily archived and searchable.

Part Three - Providing the Needed Outlet for the Personal Voice.  Empowering individual employees through blogs has already been proven to motivate employees and enhance the quality of the content generated.

Part Four - Aligning with the Rise of Distributed Markets.  By turning over a measure of control to customers,  businesses build trust and commitment with their buyers, eBay a prime example.  Blogs provide an easy access point to the on-line marketplace of ideas and influence both inside and outside the corporate firewall

Part Five - Better Enabling the Decentralization of Business. Bypassing managers and allowing employees and teams to communicate with each other directly and at the same time serving as a valuable resource for future teams facing the same issues.

Part Six  - Meeting the Desire for More Individual Connections.  There's a pent-up demand for a personal connection.  Consumers would rather listen to the informal and unedited thoughts of an individual than the collective wisdom of the marketing department

Part Seven - Driving Better Understanding Through Dialog. Nothing beats face to face communication for effective dialog, but blogs, with their conversational tone and the ability to exchange comments is second.  It's marketing through conversations.