Naked Conversations

Got your attention with that heading didn’t I! It’s the book I’ve been reading by Robert Scoble and Shel Israel about everything blog. A few things I learned:

• Blogs can be public or private – available on the web for one and all to read or used internally as a collaborative work tool behind the protection of a firewall
• For a small business, blogs are the best opportunity to talk and listen with people you would not otherwise meet
• Blogs are conversations – so even if you read more than “talk” (or post), you’ll benefit
• Blogs have made it a smaller, faster world – now there is only a 4 hour window to respond to a major news story whereas previously, there was a week
• Blogging is thinking out loud – which leads to humility and a greater humanization of communication

Success tips for blogging:

Talk, don’t sell because people visit blogs to see what others care about and know.
Post often and be interesting even if the post is only a link to another blog in the category in which you are trying to establish your own authority.
Write on issues you know and care about and your blog will be passionate and show authority.
Blogging saves money but costs time, so make an investment of time and your company will benefit from blog coverage in a way that other public relations tactics cannot attain.
You get smarter by listening to what others tell you because your readers (customers) are collectively smarter than you.

The authors’ one simple rule: Be real. Keep your conversations naked; let people know who you are and where you are coming from.

Blogs the authors love (because they are doing it right):
http://designsponge.blogspot.com
http://www.englishcut.com
http://www.buzzmachine.com
http://www.misbehaving.net/

My blog experience this morning: I visited Ernie the Attorney’s blog www.ernietheattorney.net and happened to scan his post about the ABA Tech Show in Chicago which led me to a link to I Heart Tech blog http://ihearttech.typepad.com/ . A post about changing the size of rows and columns in Outlook to ease eye strain caught my attention. Simple, practical ideas are one of the reasons I like blogs.