Here's the good news: Around June 2003, there were approximately 100,000 blogs. This morning when I checked at Technorati, they are tracking over 3.2 million blogs. That is a remarkable growth rate.
What's the bad news: Not enough business blogs. I looked at the list of top twenty blogs and while they are all very interesting blogs, none of them talks of business. Many of them might touch upon some business issues as part of discussion of technology or media (or even politics), it will be great to see more blogs related to business. I have conducted a search for blogs related to business, marketing, strategy, etc. and have essentially come up with only a handful of blogs. I was expecting a lot more professors and business school students to have their own blogs but I am somewhat disappointed that they have been so slow in embracing blogging as a tool to engage in meaningful discussions.
What can blogs do to the business world?
One aspect of the business world that frustrates all business people is that it does not share knowledge very well. Some of it is understandable (you do not want to give your knowledge to competitors) but a lot of it is not (only the PR folks can talk to anyone from the press). I support a corporation's rights to keep the message consistent and if there are too many speakers on behalf of a corporation, it can get out of hand pretty quickly. But I think that there is a clear need for business executives to be able to talk about a whole range of issues without making life difficult for the CEO. Any responsible employee understands what they can and cannot talk and if the corporation provides them with the software, hardware, and the technology to blog, they will need to abide by the rules the company sets. So any company can simply make some sensitive topics (e.g. earnings, strategy, R&D, etc.) as topics not to be discussed.
Here is a list of a few areas that I think business executives can talk about without derailing a corporation's message to Wall Street:
What's the bad news: Not enough business blogs. I looked at the list of top twenty blogs and while they are all very interesting blogs, none of them talks of business. Many of them might touch upon some business issues as part of discussion of technology or media (or even politics), it will be great to see more blogs related to business. I have conducted a search for blogs related to business, marketing, strategy, etc. and have essentially come up with only a handful of blogs. I was expecting a lot more professors and business school students to have their own blogs but I am somewhat disappointed that they have been so slow in embracing blogging as a tool to engage in meaningful discussions.
What can blogs do to the business world?
One aspect of the business world that frustrates all business people is that it does not share knowledge very well. Some of it is understandable (you do not want to give your knowledge to competitors) but a lot of it is not (only the PR folks can talk to anyone from the press). I support a corporation's rights to keep the message consistent and if there are too many speakers on behalf of a corporation, it can get out of hand pretty quickly. But I think that there is a clear need for business executives to be able to talk about a whole range of issues without making life difficult for the CEO. Any responsible employee understands what they can and cannot talk and if the corporation provides them with the software, hardware, and the technology to blog, they will need to abide by the rules the company sets. So any company can simply make some sensitive topics (e.g. earnings, strategy, R&D, etc.) as topics not to be discussed.
Here is a list of a few areas that I think business executives can talk about without derailing a corporation's message to Wall Street:
- Trends in technology, consumers, markets, etc.
- Customer needs
- Forecasts for market size and growth rates
- Interactions between people, products, and technologies
Tremendous amount of knowledge resides in the minds of business professionals in America and blogging is one way to get it out for the benefit of the society. Yes, papers are published and presentations are given at conferences, but the frequency is small and the number of people who get the opportunity to present and listen is miniscule. Blogs allow a larger number of people to share that knowledge and benefit from it.
Microsoft is one of the few companies that is allowing its employees to blog and from what I have heard from my technologist friends, their blogs are highly valuable resources for information. I am convinced that we need more of such blogs.