It requires a shift in thinking more than it requires a shift in training.

A blog doesn’t automatically make you an honest broker.

That comes down to what you say on your blog……how you communicate.

This isn’t a new phenomenon by any means. The idea of open communication and treating customers with respect and honesty is as old as the hills. It’s just that we’ve moved so far away from it that it seems alien to more than most these days.

Many CEOs and business leaders don’t want candid two-way, flame-possible conversations with customers. How many businesses you know of are great with customer service?

How many businesses want to hear from customers, oh sure, praise and “how can I buy more of your shit?”

A revolution in corporate culture is required now. After that occurs, the blog will be ready, willing, and waiting to help.

Ah ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.

To this day we still see websites being built without any thought as to how they might be found via search engines. Obviously, the client doesn’t really know otherwise they’d probably build the thing themselves. The truly sad thing is, though, that many a web designer knows very little about SEO or blogging either.

Subsequently, the potential of the website hasn’t really been seen by numerous businesses.

Once bitten, twice shy and all that.

Oh…..and never trust a one-trick pony web designer.

Firstly a general observation about the internet, and all things computer-ish really, is that few people I know over the age of forty know anything about the internet other than how to use Google, check for cheap flights, look for porn, order from Amazon or check out friends re-united. It is unfortunate that there is not a wider understanding of what a powerful research instrument the web provides. As many “leaders” of business are forty plus, I think there is a general lack of awareness of the web as both a research tool and a promotional media.

Most companies seem to feel that they must have a website, they are not sure why, but they “sort off” know that they should have one. As most traditional websites are “static” they get one designed often as cheaply as possible and then leave it sat there somewhere on the net. Very few even know its purpose, let alone design it to fulfil a role, or promote it so that it can achieve that role. They can say “Yea sure we have a website, you know”, and that makes them feel up to speed, and modern. At its core the average business website is a brochure, and usually not a very good one.

Now we introduce the weblog, which by its’ nature is dynamic, and offers infinitely more potential to reach markets, disseminate information and inter-act with communities and marketplaces than any website and companies have to start thinking! Since few of them have even got to grips with a static site, the concept of the weblog can be hard to appreciate. Also many smaller companies have no in-house web programming capability, the original website was outsourced and remains in its original state forever. Whilst the skills required to update static sites or produce a weblog are not too demanding, they are still seen as a “black art” to many, and beyond their abilities. This is not as true of young people, but as many of these are naturally interested in music, gaming or “themselves”, there is a proliferation of weblogs on these subjects (the online diaries being an example of self-interest).

I concur wholeheartedly with your observations about the British being reserved and reluctant to self publicise, I referred to that recently at Steelstrip World, referring to our inability as a country to let the world know what a great engineering nation we are.

Unfortunately at the moment, the majority of people who to read weblogs are people who write them, (in the UK I mean), but that should not stop us developing the media, as I do believe when belatedly the Brits embrace the media, the blog will begin to fulfil it’s potential.

This should work:

http://www.ecademy.com/module.php?mod=blog&uid=74997

It’s a link to the whole blog. Just scroll down and look for the post the has something to do with business blogging and black holes.

Good spot. I’m glad somebody is on the ball.

I can’t get the link to that article to work, could you check it please or has it expired?