FT says you gotta blog The Financial Times has an article (archive is subscription only) which says that companies have to have a blog. Well actually it doesn't go that far but it is significant that the FT is continuing to write about blogs. At least it means that CEOs will sit and listen. One sentence that jumped out at me was "Kryptonite's lack of a significant blog of its own meant it had no efficient way to respond to the blogger's original claim". While this isn't true it does help to stress the growing significance of blogs.

4.11.05 18:19 Permalink / 1 Comment / comment

Politcian's blogs Philip Young has an interesting and lengthy post at Behind The Spin: Blogs and the 2005 election. Before I comment I have to give a disclaimer that I am also a politician who blogs. Tom Watson MP was the first politician in the UK to start a blog and my blog as a local councillor started very shortly afterwards. While Philip's analysis of blogs as part of an election campaign I think it misses the point about why the few politicians who are blogging actually blog. Certainly I started mine as a way of keeping my constituents informed about my activities and what is happening locally, as well as creating a dialogue for them to respond and provide comments. The ward that I represent is one of the most deprived in Leeds, indeed the country, so is not an obvious contender for high levels of internet access. My councillor blog gets about 120-160 unique visitors a day. How many of them are local it is impossible to say. However, I do know that a number of influential local people read it. From the logs I can see that many local voluntary and public sector organisations visit it regularly. I can also see that there are a number of visitors who use the free internet access in local libraries. I know from speaking to people that are active in local community groups that they read the blog. These people in turn then help to spread some of the information by old-fashioned word of mouth - the most communications channel that exists. That is how politicians can really use blogs to help them. Blogs also fit in with modern political campaigns which is about talking and listening to the electorate all year round and not just at election time. That's not to say that you can't use blogs and traditional websites effectively for campaigning as well. At the moment I'm having a highly publicised tussle with a member of the controlling group on Leeds City Council who is responsible for axing a bonfire and fireworks party in my ward. You can take a look at the microsite I created at www.stopthecuts.co.uk and you can read some of the media coverage in the Yorkshire Evening Post. The blog provided local people with a means to respond and has received almost 20 comments. About 80% of them are in favour of our campaign, but to show that the blog really welcomes debate the negative comments remain as well. Another excellent example of a politician who understands the potential of blog is Councillor Andrew Brown in Lewisham. If you're interested in the future potential for political blogs in the UK then subscribe to the feed as I've got a couple of interesting projects in the pipeline at the moment.

4.11.05 08:57 Permalink / 1 Comment / comment

Announcing Yorkshirebiztalk.com As part of my campaign to help Yorkshire companies be at the forefront of embracing the benefits of business blogging I'm delighted to announce Yorkshirebiztalk.com. At the moment the only two bloggers are me and Karen Marshall but we've already got some interesting people lined up to start blogging on Yorkshire business. You'll start to see them introducing themselves over the next few days, weeks and months. You can read the inaugural post here. More guest bloggers wanted If you're not one of the people we've already approached and you've got a strong business connection with Yorkshire then please get in touch. We'd welcome new authors.

3.11.05 13:59 Permalink / comment

Corporate blogs in Europe Fredrik Wackå has just updated his excellent list of European companies that have corporate blogs. It's not a complete list but is still pretty comprehensive and unlike so many other lists it is truly international and lists blogs in many languages other than English.

3.11.05 13:51 Permalink / 1 Comment / comment

EPIC movie from the Ragan Communications summit Andrew Lark has provided links to his presentations from the Ragan Communications Summit. The EPIC animation is definitely worth a view, it only lasts about five minutes.

24.10.05 09:33 Permalink / 1 Comment / comment

Hot new business blog from Caspian Publishing UK-business magazine publisher Caspian Publishing has started a hot new business blog. The Business Editors is billed as "20 top journalists... 194 years of experience... One blog". I won't normally do this but this entry is cross-posted from a  post I've just made on the Softalk blog. Many UK PR and business people won't need an introduction to Caspian Publishing but for those of you overseas all that you need to know is that they publish some of the most 'refreshing' business magazines around.

21.10.05 09:54 Permalink / 1 Comment / comment

Pleeese think beyond the US of A The "Doyen of PR blogging" thinks that a baseball analogy works for an intelligent discussion about blogs and linking. I'm going to confess right now - I haven't read Steve Rubel's post. There is absolutely no point. How the heck is a baseball analogy meant to work for blogging? Blogging is a global phenomenon. It happens in hundreds of languages. Geographically countries like Korea and France are right up at the top of the global blogosphere. What can you say about a 'sport' that thinks a World Series normally involves the USA v. USA? Athletics has global reach. Soccer has global reach. Tennis has global reach. Rugby has global reach. Tiddlywinks probably has more global reach. Baseball doesn't even reach out to the English speaking world, let alone the global blogosphere. Am I right in thinking baseball is rounders for boys?

19.10.05 21:47 Permalink / 16 Comments / comment

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