Have you had the pleasure as yet of partaking in the new web tv extravaganza that steel behemoth Arcelor Mittal have put together? If the header is to be believed then it could very well be called Inside Transforming Tomorrow.

Not only that but there’s a blog to tickle your fancy as well. It looks fabulous. But, as we all know, looks can often be quite deceptive fellows.

I mean, for a start off there’s that damn pic above. It isn’t some kind of spoof, I can assure you. And neither is the following post that I found: Shop floor Safety audits: we focus on people

Is there anything more rewarding that (sic) helping to save a life? Our colleagues here at the Luxembourg Headquarters had the opportunity to learn some days ago that everyone in our Group can do it! How? Thanks to what we call a ‘shop floor audit’. Let us explain to you how that works.

Seriously, I’m not making this up.

Diving into a freezing lake, or charging into a burning building with little thought to your own personal safety possibly warrants a pat on the back and a couple of column inches in the local paper, but implementing a few health and safety measures to ensure people don’t get squashed by a fork lift truck doesn’t.

At Butler Sheetmetal we’ve saved at least three lives by pointing out that sticking one’s noggin inside the hydroform could cause a few problems.

Anyway, I’m sure once the exuberant upbeat tone of the PR department has run its course there’ll be some right riveting stuff going on…..and I’m not being facetious either.

For the time being, it’s corporate answer to The Day Today.

A sudden realisation hit me as I garbled my way through an email q&a related to business blogging for a West Virginia news publication: Would I still point people in the direction of The Tinbasher as an example of a good business blog?

The next thing you know, I’m suffering some kind of existential meltdown fearing it’d lost its mojo.

The very same evening after I’d spent most of the day wondering if I or this blog was still cutting it, I came across this post asking what had happened to all the great bloggers the blogger in question once knew (or read, to be more precise):

Three years ago there was some riveting writing going on in the blogosphere Hugh Macleod held my rapt attention for the length of even his longest posts and the Tin Basher made me giggle with his brash and bold writings on business.

So I suppose my point is what gives? 2 posts about The Global Microbrand in a year? And the Tin Basher hasn’t said anything… well most anything remotely interesting in weeks.

I think someone’s being rather generous about me not having said anything remotely interesting in weeks.

There’s a single key element to quality business blogging in my not so humble opinion, and that is business blogs tend to be better the closer to the business the blogger is. You see, a business blog can only really differentiate itself by being able to get behind the scenes within a business. Think of a good business blog as the gateway to the soul of a business. It was far easier for me to do this when I was in constant contact with the Butler brothers and got to pop in to the office once or twice a week and go out on the brass razoo with John. While communications have moved on since the days of the Pony Express, an ocean is still a bit of a barrier. But, there’s no excuse not to pick up the phone or throw a few more emails about than we currently do.

Saying that, this blog has always had a rather peculiar focus. It’s never kept sheet metal workers happy all of the time and it’s never kept marketers happy all of the time. I don’t need to point out the obvious here do I? The bottom line is that this blog is part of a curiously pasted together online marketing strategy for a sheet metal firm and, as such, needs to meet the goals of that business - the major goal being to generate more business, which it seems to do admirably. Now another thing happened on the way to the bank in so much that this blog became something of a shining beacon for prospective bloggers to home in on. While I’m never going to complain in a million years about that side of things, it does mean that you feel you’ve got a reputation to live up to of sorts.

At the moment I’m probably mid-eighties Bowie.

I’d also hate to be living off past reputations alone.

I suppose I’m getting round to asking in my rather convoluted way for a bit of feedback as to what you think might be missing or what you’d like to see more of, if anything!

In the meantime, you’re always welcome to read what I’m now paid to do as part of my 8-5 at Direct Online Marketing on our company blog over there.

Maybe be that contains more along the lines some people might be missing. If not I’m buggered.

Ah, to have proper internet again.

Irrespective of where I lay my swede, I always end up near some wretched foundry. If starting off in that bloody electricity cupboard of an old foundry at Butler Sheetmetal that would warp your monitor with its electrical juiciness and zap you once in a blue moon if you started licking exposed metal filing cabinets. Then I had a little stretch in the ruddy rust belt, where you honestly couldn’t tell a used and a disused factory apart. And now my latest parish sees all manner of heavy industry hiding in the most inopportune of idyllic little spots with the Pittsburgh Steelers 40 minutes down the road. (Although the idea of supporting the Steelers to a Cleveland Browns fan is as abhorrent as supporting Blackburn if you’re a Burnley fan.)

But Pittsburgh is the venue for the Online Marketing: Innovations That Work Conference that I’m currently blogging for. I must admit that it’s nice still being involved with businesses in your more traditional industries. For example, I just popped to the bathroom and had a tug boat pushing a few coal barges passing ingloriously by the window.

Granted, that had nothing to do with actually being involved with any type of business - I was just filling in the industrial backdrop.

So, if you happen to be round Pittsburgh, West Virginia, or even Ohio, take a look at the marketing conference site and reserve your place.

Even if you’re not, you can still come.

UPDATE: Considering I’m doing the calendar rounds, here’s write-up so you can give it the once-over:

Online Marketing: Innovations that Work
Discover how simple, cutting edge marketing tools can help expand and promote your business.

Learn how you can use the Web to increase sales and build brand ad awareness at this exciting one-day event with experts from Microsoft, eBay, WebTrends, and other international and regional companies. At this event, http://www.MarketingConference.org, you will learn:

• Cutting edge Web techniques to enhance public relations
• How you can track campaigns across different channels
• How businesses are improving their customer relationships with blogs
• The best uses of - and uncommon tactics for - search marketing
• Why social media isn’t just for kids anymore
• How to maximize your ad dollars for total efficiency

Reserve your seat at this conference online at http://www.MarketingConference.org or by calling 1.800.979.3177.

Date
Thursday, August 16, 2007

Time
8:15 AM – 4:15 PM

Location
Hilton Garden Inn Pittsburgh / Southpointe
1000 Corporate Drive
Canonsburg, PA 15317

RSVP Info
1.800.979.3177
info@MarketingConference.org
http://www.MarketingConference.org

Price
Event registration:
$125 if booked in advance. $149 at the door

Both the print and online editions of The Times have a list of the top 50 corporate and anti-corporate blogs and The Tinbasher is in there under the ‘Industrials’ section.

My only question is whether it falls into the corporate or anti-corporate category?

For me personally, writing The Tinbasher is a bit like being in one of those obscure critically acclaimed bands. If only it could afford me the lifestyle to which I would like to be accustomed as opposed to the one I am currently accustomed to (although, ‘working’ in just your underpants can be quite liberating y’know). I do this for the love not the money. But, it’s the kind of love that only a mother can possess for a child who has a face like a spanked arse.

Since emigrating to America I’ve found that I now work at home rather than working from home. And believe me there’s a difference. In the UK I could pop into Butler Sheetmetal whenever and go and see people about possible projects amongst other things - home was just a convenient base. Over here I feel chained to a damn computer - home feels more like serving a stretch.

So, I’ve decided to get off my lily-white ass and find me a job. Or, to be more precise, I’ve had to keep my lily-white ass plonked firmly in its chair and find me a job. And I don’t mean any old job I mean a career related to what I’ve done over the past three years. Something either blogging, SEO/SEM or writing related.

If we go back to the critically acclaimed band thing and take into account that I’ve taught myself everything, as well as The Tinbasher being nothing more than an experiment then what’s your worth? If you said all this had been planned on the back of a beer mat you’d be giving me credit for more than I deserve. Does a prospective employer want a lucky chancer with some degree of natural talent or an analytical thinker who works their nuts off? For the record, I’m obviously both.

In the past couple of weeks I’ve interviewed for a Corporate Blogger position (first question asked: “So what job are you here for?”), been put up in a plush hotel and wined and dined with regards to an SEM position (I presume they didn’t get me down because they thought I needed a break), and have an interview coming up for a rather interesting writing/editing position. I’m also clogging up one or two other pipelines.

I’m getting an inkling that I might be worth something to somebody. But, I’m a self-deprecating doofus that expects any suitor to at least do their homework on me. And there’s a contradiction there that belies a certain arrogance.

One of my main concerns is The Tinbasher itself. At the moment I think it’s suffering a bit due to there being a bit of water between Colne and Elyria. I’m simply not as connected as I was. If this blog turns into nothing more than odd sheet metal tidbits and inane ramblings about what I’m doing over here then we’re in trouble. But, there’s no way I could pass the mantle on and there’s no way I could give it up. I suppose I’m a bit like Tony Blair.

Now whilst everything is all a bit topsy-turvy and I haven’t a clue what could happen or where I could wind up, I’ll sort it - I always do.

In the meantime your candid observations are both appreciated and required.

Earlier today I received an email from the British Library. The inability to recall taking anything out probably meant the fine for not returning it was going to be a whopper. I was envisioning me having ‘borrowed’ Leonardo Da Vinci’s original sketchbook in a confused booze-hazed event circa 1996 and they’d finally caught up with me.

Mexico was sounding good.

On opening said email I was pleasantly surprised to be informed that:

The British Library is building a collection of blogs. This collection will form part of the UK Web Archiving Consortium (UKWAC) initiative to archive websites of research interest. Please visit www.webarchive.org.uk if you wish to see the current online archive which is publicly accessible.

We would like to invite you to have your site included in this important collection for Internet research. We will be selecting some 150 key sites to form the basis of the blog’s collection until August 2007 but archiving will continue into the future.

So, in a nutshell, The Tinbasher is going to be part of the British Library’s Internet Research Archive for as long as they keep paying their hosting bills.

As I absorbed the implications of somebody 200 years hence being able to view this nonsense researching a paper relating to their Phd in New Corporate Communications History, I couldn’t help but raise a wry smile: immortality is such a humbling experience. At least now I can rest easy at the thought of leaving something for future generations apart from a pair of soiled underpants buried under some rocks in a non-biodegradable carrier bag. (I was thirty six.)

Shall we dedicate this one to Craig? I think so.

Please note: all comments are now eternal or for as long as dispensationalist end-times theory allows.