One Flew Over the Cubicle's Nest

Quit Fighting it--Write it (NY Times Blogging Tips)

The NY Times posted a list of blogging tips  from veteran bloggers, some well known (Mark Cuban), some not ("So You Want to be a Blogging Star). Some of these are a little overly simplistic--example, Cuban says to "blog about your passions. Don’t blog about what you think your audience wants. Post because you have something you are dying to write about.”
Well, this is ok but you might wind up writing for an audience of one if your interest is too narrow (example: the study of Victorian door knobs). You'd be better off doing a little research on similar topics and sites and developing a topic you're interested in that also has a reasonable following.

One that stands out for me on the corporate side is: Just Post it Already

Many corporate folks still approach blogging as if they're writing an article or book chapter. This is all part of "letting go," which so many people struggle with--particularly marketing people (messaging is still God). I personally have trouble with this one too, having come out of a traditional journalism background. There's something in us that wants to lay out the entire argument, polish it, add transitions and so on. Posting is really more about getting the idea out there in an informal, top of mind way vs polished prose. Think of it as a work in progress, which is never really finished.

" Xeni Jardin, who juggles blogging at the quirky alternative-news site BoingBoing.net with a career as a freelance journalist for NPR, Wired magazine and others, resists the urge to polish her blog prose the way she would a radio script. “Don’t bottle up your ideas forever believing you have to hit the same kind of mature, complete, perfect point as you would with a magazine or newspaper article,” she says. “Blogs are always in progress.” Boing Boing’s bloggers are known for going back to posts to update them, adding new information and striking out factual errors."
The full list (with a few comments)

1. Don't expect to get rich (THERE GOES MY EARLY RETIREMENT PLAN)
2. Write about what you want to write about, in your own voice
3. Fit blogging into the holes in your schedule (WHAT HOLES?)
4. Just post it already!
5. Keep a regular rhythm  (2 to 3x at week minimum--although easier said than done).
6. Join the community
7. Plug yourself  (CUBAN HAS NO PROBLEM WITH THIS ONE)

Scoble, Video and the Future of Corporate America

Ever wonder where all this--social media, new communications, etc--is going on the corporate side? Sure, the consumer side is exploding--YouTube, MySpace, Digg, and so on. But what about the business folks? I posed this question to Robert Scoble earlier this week at lunch, and he had some observations.(Scoble, of course, is Mr Blogger, originally of Microsoft fame who went on to write a cool book, Naked Conversations and become a BIG NAME in the blogosphere. He's also an amazing "Super Connector" in the Tipping Point tradition.)
First, companies are very slow to get on this wave, and are trying to figure out where and how to fit it into their existing communications paradigm (PR, marketing, etc). It's not an easy fit. Example: who wants to read a professionally written blog by a ghost writer or PR manager?

Most are not exactly welcoming this trend with open arms; they seem to find it fascinating and scary at the same time. But they are  edging  into the  water.

"Digging" for More Traffic

Great conversation on Guy's blog about using Digg, Netscape and  "fringe" sites to build traffic.
Guy Kawasaki's blog. Digg is interesting because you actually submit your story, put it into play--and if you get lucky and it draws readers, you can drive a lot of traffic. Welcome to the new social media world. Here's the post that started it all Pronet Advertising
 

Bloggers Going Mainstream

Intriguing piece in Newsday about the competition among bloggers to break into print, broadcast and other traditional ("old") media (Newsday).  "Every so-called professional blogger I know wants to work for print," says Melissa Lafsky, 27, a lawyer who leveraged her blog (Opinionistas .com) into a book deal.

Other successes are noted. One young woman, who wrote about her sex life in DC online for only 13 days and got embroiled in a scandal, supposedly landed a six-figure advance to write a novel, and an option to turn her life into the next "Sex and the City." Other bloggers have been tapped by TV, commissioned to write songs or signed by agents and publishers.

The lure of the traditional media is obvious: prestige and credibilty. Writing for a national magazine, publishing a book (with a respectable publisher) or getting a regular gig on one of the big TV networks is still a giant credibility builder--even today.

But the blogger success stories are few and far between, despite the fact that there's 31 million blogs (Technorati), and it's doubling every 5 1/2 months. The article points out that only 9 percent of Internet users read blogs frequently. But I think there are other reasons, namely that it's simply hard to break into traditional media. Period.

A blogger may have some interesting ideas and even be able to write, but magazines like Fast Company and Vanity Fair likely get hundreds of submissions a week from people with ideas--and many of them are professional writers. Writing a blog may improve your odds because it gives the editor (TV producer) a good taste of your work, but only if it's extremely good or unique--or bizarre (like the girl in DC example). It's not a bad idea to use a blog to begin laying out a book or article--it's easier than the traditional method--but it takes a lot more to break through (marketing, packaging, great ideas, persistence, and so on).