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Can we authenticate or get reviewed of our blogs? August 13, 2007

Posted by Null in About Blogs.
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Do blog authors have any authencity of their published expressions or journals? There are thousands of trusted blogs which are read by millions. But are they really a legitimate source of information and ideas? WordPress, MySpace, Typepad and Blogger have encouraged many proletarians as regular authors and  the information we are recieving might not be accurate or acceptable. For instance, a CEO’s blog does not necessarily symbolize that the information on his/her blog is valid. Till now I have not heard about any weblogs that you can call it as a legitimate source of information. Even the prominent Wikipedia raises the question of authenticity.

I wonder if it can be possible to have some sort of peer reviewed blogs similar to the peer reviewed journals we have in academia. If that can be made possible, it would have been easier to identify the legitimate weblogs. More importantly, reviewed blogs could have been used for further referencing in other forms of social media.

Piracy in the blogsphere July 13, 2007

Posted by Null in About Blogs, Ethics.
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There are thousands of bloggers who copy ones ideas and put them back to their blogs, which is quite similar to the paraphrasing we used to do in our academic life. Some might care to link back your ideas, and there are some who gives a sh*t about your intellectual ideas. The problem is that your innovative and creative journal entry goes global even without a simple acknowledgement. The result is mistrust in the blogsphere and is unethical too. Nobody knows who really initiated this innovative idea or discussion. 

A good blogger knows what it feels like when their writings are being copied and not acknowledged. I still don’t know whether any ethical guidelines exist or not but what I felt about writing blog journals is that some DOs and DONTs should exist in the blogsphere. Probably a code of ethics or something.  Although most bloggers do care about acknowledging the genuine authors, but there are rotten tomatoes in every basket. However, mere guidelines are not the solutions to the ethical dilemma of the blogsphere. It is upto the people in the blogsphere whether they care about it or not. If they don’t care about it, the general acceptance of these so called freelance journals will perish very soon.

Advantages of weblogs over static web pages June 25, 2007

Posted by Null in About Blogs, Corporate Communications.
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As we know blogs are dynamic in nature where the pages are not static. It means that our blog pages get updated as soon as we post a new article. Thus the dynamism of blogs gives us an advantage in the search engine results as well. Thanks to the great innovation of Web 2.0 technologies. A static web page would not have got us enough hits like blogs. This competitive edge tells us that organisations should focus more on a blog instead of their corporate web pages.

I can show an evidence of it. If you search “organisational blogging” on Google, you will find this very blog as the first result or on the first page. The interesting thing is, I started this blog just 3 months back and it surprisingly appears on Google’s top results. How did this happen? It happened because it is a blog and it is being updated every now and then. This is just an example that blogs are more result oriented and can give your organisation the edge to communicate with customers and the external environment. In a marketing point of view, blogs gives you the ability to promote your organisation rapidly.

Contents of corporate blogs April 22, 2007

Posted by Null in About Blogs, Corporate Communications.
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What do we write in corporate blogs? Is it all about the products and services we sell? Well it depends whether we are going for an external or internal organisational blog. For an external blog we are trying to communicate with customers and other external groups. Thus we can concentrate on the technologies we use for our products and services. We can also make announcements and get feedback from our customers. However, there might be some other external parties who will get involved. For example, if the product that we are selling is tobacco, then anti-smoking campaigners and health organisations will join the blog to have a conversation about the pros and cons of tobacco marketing. The crucial part is to be polite with external communicators and view their ideas respectfully.

On the other hand if we decide to blog internally, we can blog about the different ways to improve our organisational efficiency. In case of a project team, we can even discuss about the issues concerning the project work. A whole bunch of topics like company annoucements, change of direction, employee socialisation, employee involvement, social responsibility, etc can be discussed about. With blogging conversations you will get so many expert opinions and diverse ideas from your employees that you might not have thought about those issues individually. Thus it creates a new form of Decentralisation in the organisation and which is good for enhancing the organisational culture.

List of top corporate bloggers April 22, 2007

Posted by Null in About Blogs, Corporate Communications.
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While there are no universal laws about who should blog for an organisation. Although many critics suggest that CEOs should blog for the company, but I believe employees who are highly identifiable by an organisation should blog. You might wonder who are the top bloggers in external corporate blogging. Here is a list of top rated corporate bloggers. Try having a look into their blogs and guess what made these blogs so special in the blogosphere.

These are some of the good corporate blogs that I browsed before starting my own blog.  Some of these blogs are technical and I did not understand most of the conversations of those blogs.  I suggest to look at the blogs, their contents and styles, and the way of conversations held. In addition to these, don’t forget to browse Jason Calacanis’s media blog where he talks about the gossips of Hollywood.

Blogs and organisational identity April 22, 2007

Posted by Null in About Blogs, Books.
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Yesterday I was browsing the blogosphere and ended up with a very thougtful journal posted by Thomas on his blog. He talked about organisational identity and how blogs can help firms in creating identified employees. The topic is a must read for someone who is interested in corporate blogs. If possible try reading the book “Identity in Organizations” edited by Whetten and Godfrey. A serious organisational blogger should read this book.

Blogging etiquette April 22, 2007

Posted by Null in About Blogs.
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From my personal experience, I felt that blogging is a very user friedly social media for conversations. You open up a blog account and you are ready to blog. You dont have to be a techy to blog. All you need is the writing skills, patience and the correct etiquette for conversations. However, it would be wise to realise that whatever we are writing in our blogs is going to the public knowledge and we need to be very careful about what we say on blogs.

Mellisa Waters of BellaOnline’s Journals Editor has emphasized on accuracy, spellings, and simple plain language when writing blogs. Another important etiquette for blogging is politeness. Blogging is casual but we should also be polite and respectful to what others think and say. Thus acknowledging other’s ideas should be a priority in terms of blogging etiquette.

On the contrary, James (an IT architect) has argued that blogging does not need any etiquette. He believes that many thoughtful conversations does not occur just because we are worried about offending someone when having a conversation. I think James has a very good logic but etiquette is much important these days. Just think about Kathy Sierra’s consequences for creating passionate users. There are no crimestoppers on the web which leaves us with one hope…that is etiquette. What do you think?

Books about corporate blogs April 22, 2007

Posted by Null in About Blogs, Books.
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In order to get started effectively with a corporate blog, it is worthwhile to have some research about the content and styles. “Uses of Blogs” by Axel Bruns and Joanne Jacobs is a good preliminery reading about blogs. In addition, Debbie Weil’s “The Corporate Blogging Book” can be handy for getting some tips on corporate blogs. The first chapters of both the books are provided free to download in pdf format.

Uses of BlogsThe Corporate Blogging Book

 

So when you are ready to start a corporate blog for your organisation, think whether you you would go for an external or internal blog or both of them. As we have already discussed about the benefits of external and internal blogs, you must also look at the cons of both the types before you start your organisational blog.

Corporate blogging and ethics April 22, 2007

Posted by Null in About Blogs, Ethics.
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As far as communications are concerned, trust and ethics are always core issues in managing social media. Similar to other social media, blogging is also difficult to control since there are no cyber patrol for controlling the thugs of social media. However, unethical practices are less likely to be found in blogs compared to other social media like E-mail. But there are no universal standard guidelines for blogs. Most bloggers outline or highlight the blogging policies on their blogs.

Organisational blogs such as IBM, DELL, Yahoo, Boeing and Marriot International have outlined the blogging policy and guidelines on their blogs. These guidelines tells us the various legal, ethical, copyright and privacy issues that may be relevant with the blogs.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EEF) has an interesting set of general guidelines for bloggers who might be wary about the legal and ethical issues concerning blogs. A look into those guidelines will give a clear idea about the Do’s and Dont’s of blogs.

Another way of securing blog articles is by the use of Creative Commons License where you can not only copyright your ideas but also share by letting others copy your ideas. If you want to buy a seal, CopyrightDeposit can provide you with a copyright declaration seal through a one time payment.

In general, most bloggers seemed to have high ethical standards as because they too contribute to the knowledge of the blogosphere. But it is worthwhile to understand what could have happened if the bloggers were not aware about the intellectual property rights. Due to the blogging boom, I think it is not far when we will have to have a genuine security measure to claim our intellectual property in future. I just wonder what happens next when corporate giants like Google does not care about their client’s privacy. Watch this video.

Does it matter who should blog and who should not? April 22, 2007

Posted by Null in About Blogs, Corporate Communications.
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Corporate blogs are news ways to communicate with the world. No matter what business are you in, it is worthwhile to look at the benefits of corporate blogging. Corporate blogging can not only enhance your communication with your customers and stakeholders but also with your employees.

When employees are allowed to be a part of the communication process, it enhances the organizational culture. As I have browsed through some of the corporate blogs, in most cases it is one individual who is representing the organisation. For Sun Microsystems, it is the CEO who is blogging for the company. Jonathan Schwartz, the CEO of Sun Microsystems has his own blog by which he communicates with the employees and the customers. I was wondering whether CEOs should blog or not. In a post of Global PR Week Blog, David Taylor said CEOs should not blog at all because they are very busy individuals thinking about strategic planning. I think it does not need to be a CEO to blog for an organisation. Employee who you think is dedicated and has a good writing skill can blog for your company. All you have to make sure that employee is highly identified by your organisation. Organisational identification is a sense of belongingness to the organisation by an individual. Dr. Carl and his students at Northeastern University have discussed more about organisational identification on their communication blog. It is really an interesting blog to read. Go dig it.