Self promotion

Many of us are uncomfortable about self promotion, even if it is with regard to something that other people would really want to know about.David Maister talks about this phenomenon in this very interesting post and podcast.

Technorati Tags: David Maister, self promotion

Corporate blogging - my thoughts

Over at Abhilasha's blog I found some interesting questions raised by her on corporate blogging. In this post I attempt to answer a few of them:

1. Why should my organization blog?
For starters, if you are a consumer facing company (B2C), it helps to have an open conversation with your customer. Customers love to know what their favourite companies are upto. This is more so in the case of products that early adopters love (tech products, gadgets etc). A corporate blog can also become a very human touch point for customers, when compared to a boring website or even worse, a call center!

2. What realistic expectations can my organization have about the benefits of blogging, and what
obvious pitfalls or shortcomings should we be wary of?
A great, engaging blog does a lot more PR than a press release ever will. A great corporate blog can also help develop a loyal community of users around a product. Human beings love to be connnected to causes - sometimes, merely promoting a great product (like the I-pod) can be a cause. A blog can help create such a cause.

3. Who in the organization should blog?
I would say, the most important decision makers should. That way promises made on the blog will carry much more credibility.

4. What role does PR/ Corporate Communications have in this?
None! Blogs are the new age response to that tiring, sugar coated thing called the press relase.

5. What guidelines/policy should govern corporates bloggers?
Preferably none. However office bitching could be avoided!! A broad guideline coule be - say anything you want, as long as it is something that the customer is interested in knowing.

6. How can my organization measure the impact effectiveness of corporate blogging?
There is no need to really measure effectiveness. Think of it this way - what is the impact of a CEO talking one to one with millions of customers everyday? Its difficult to put a number to that. That's because the revenue you earn from a corporate blog is goodwill.

Technorati Tags: corporate blogs, blogging, cluetrain

XLRI Alumni in 2006-07

Prof. Madhukar Shukla compiles what XL alumni have been upto over the last year.



Technorati Tags: XLRI, Alumni

Kawasaki on market adoption

The top ten stupid ways to hinder market adoption

Guy includes one of my pet peeves - enforced immediate registration - as one of the barriers. Couldn't agree with him more. I don't understand what the additional value 'registration' brings in in an Internet scenario, where identities can easily be faked. I'd rather have a million anonymous users than 100 users about whom I know everything, and whom I can later target for promotional offers.

Corporate blogs

What kind of companies should start blogs to communicate with their customers? My thoughts:

1. Smallish startups that don't have marketing budgets
2. Companies that have very few product lines, or even better just one product. That way the conversation can be 1 to N. N to N conversations are just noise!
3. Companies whose brands directly touch individual customers. I wouldn't recommend a steel maker to start a blog for instance. I would certainly like to see, say, a winemaker with a blog (like this one). People would like to talk to or listen to brands that they directly relate to.
4. Large organizations that have people who are mini-celebrities in their own right - Steve Jobs, Robert Scoble etc.

At the end of the day, a blog is just a medium. The message is always more important than the medium. So, unless you have something compelling to say to your customer don't start a blog!

Mohammad Yunus at FICCI Mumbai

Recently, I attended a FICCI organized talk by Mohammad Yunus, the nobel prize winning proponent of microcredit. Thought I'd blog about it, but found an excellent existing post that covers it pretty well.

A talk by Mohammad Yunus

Networked marketplace

An instance of how brands will suffer if they ignore the emerging networked marketplace.
Looks like Air Deccan will need to do some serious brand rebuilding.

Missed flight, delayed flights and Air Deccan

I think an interesting thing for Air Deccan to try would be to setup a corporate blog, and start an honest conversation with its customers, acknowledge where they are going wrong, and tell us what they are doing to fix things.

Retail, and the invisible hand of the economy

Reliance, Bharti may storm microfinance.

A perfect example of how the invisible hand of the economy works. Each agent works in his own self interest, leading to a greater good for mankind. The retail revolution in India may unknowingly help in fighting poverty in rural India.

Self-aggrandization post

Gautam, India's number one business blogger considers this blog to be amongst his list of top Indian business blogs. Yay!