Thursday, June 23, 2005
Why must you want to kill things?
Oh, you're probably thinking it's more leather talk, but no, I'm talking about those tiresome memes that this is dead or that is dead, and how blogs are going to kill all those things. Journalism, mainstream media, press releases, email, newsletters etc. etc. Why do we blogvangelists feel this need to kill and destroy to feel good about ourselves?
Blogs...great tools. I swear by them. (I feel a bit like a broken record.) But they continue to be a minority player in the communications game and will for quite some time. Should you be adding blogs and RSS into every discussion you have that considers how to effectively communicate? You betcha.
Internal and external? Yup.
Marketing, PR, IR, project mgmt., customer support, sales training? Yup, blogs can help with all of that.
Will every discussion result every single time in blogs being the right answer. I don't think so.
And we blogvangelists should just get over it. I think we do more harm than good when we speak only in hyperbole and make those who might potentially jump on the bandwagon feel like losers if they haven't already. [Sort of like those Microsoft billboards that depict their own customers as dinosaurs if they haven't upgraded to XP yet. Nice.]
It won't help to berate people into trying something like blogging. I just talked a friend into starting her own blog yesterday. (I don't even think I can link to it because I'm not sure she's bought into the complete strangers reading her innermost thoughts yet.)
And the reason she finally took the plunge is that I told her, sure...it can be private if you want. Sure, you can be anonymous if you want. Sure, you can have a policy that moderates comments if you want. I have no doubt that this friend will completely fall in love with blogging in no time and will cast all caution to the wind and go full force...public and out. But some people need to ease into it, and that, too is OK.
Bonus: Andy Lark touches on the whole "Saying things are dead is dead" meme, and I agree completely.
Blogs...great tools. I swear by them. (I feel a bit like a broken record.) But they continue to be a minority player in the communications game and will for quite some time. Should you be adding blogs and RSS into every discussion you have that considers how to effectively communicate? You betcha.
Internal and external? Yup.
Marketing, PR, IR, project mgmt., customer support, sales training? Yup, blogs can help with all of that.
Will every discussion result every single time in blogs being the right answer. I don't think so.
And we blogvangelists should just get over it. I think we do more harm than good when we speak only in hyperbole and make those who might potentially jump on the bandwagon feel like losers if they haven't already. [Sort of like those Microsoft billboards that depict their own customers as dinosaurs if they haven't upgraded to XP yet. Nice.]
It won't help to berate people into trying something like blogging. I just talked a friend into starting her own blog yesterday. (I don't even think I can link to it because I'm not sure she's bought into the complete strangers reading her innermost thoughts yet.)
And the reason she finally took the plunge is that I told her, sure...it can be private if you want. Sure, you can be anonymous if you want. Sure, you can have a policy that moderates comments if you want. I have no doubt that this friend will completely fall in love with blogging in no time and will cast all caution to the wind and go full force...public and out. But some people need to ease into it, and that, too is OK.
Bonus: Andy Lark touches on the whole "Saying things are dead is dead" meme, and I agree completely.
// posted by ElisaC @ 9:15 PM 
