Blogging in business

My book Living Networks, which came out at the end of 2002, opened with the words "Macromedia, the company best known for selling Flash software, is blogging," and went on to describe what blogs were, and how they were just beginning to be used in business. A few years on, and according to the title of a conference I spoke at in New York earlier this year, we are seeing Blogging Goes Mainstream. The week before the conference BusinessWeek came out with a cover story Blogs Will Change Your Business. Indeed, blogs are far more than a social phenomenon. They are playing an increasingly important role in business.

Now, Bill Ives, who formerly ran Accenture's knowledge management and portals practice, and marketing consultant Amanda Watlington have just released a new book Business Blogging: A Practical Guide. Not surprisingly, given Bill's background, it is an extremely pragmatic guide for businesses looking at the applications of blogging. I strongly recommend it for any organization that is considering implementing blogging, either externally for profile-building or customer relationships, or internally for knowledge management and collaboration. The heart of the book is its 70 case studies of bloggers and their experiences, including individuals, consultants, large companies, and not-for-profit, encompassing an extremely diverse range of objectives and design parameters. Every organization should at least consider how they might apply blogs. For those in this situation this book should be considered on a par on quality and value with the ultra-expense reports from the tech analysts - just with a lot lower sticker-price!