A function description and example on the Mathworks blog (Loren) I have looked at some blogs which seem to have a big message. But the big blogs are more of a promotion vehicle for industry leaders or kind of a newsletter specific to a very specialized topic. Business and technology also has the routine task of keeping users informed, spreading to a wide field ideas, and general communication. We are starting to see the corporate world using blogs for these tasks. Since this is such a new area of corporate communication things are changing every day. It seems like the more conservative corporate communicators are putting their "toe in the water". Which is to be expected. Oracle and Mathworks are a great example of this. Both companies use blogs for "less formal" communication. Basically they are letting out some internal info which was spread out in other ways in the past. The articles on the blogs look like white papers, reports, and application examples (sometimes called application notes). They also probably replace direct communication of internal developers and business managers with key customers and the sales channel (here I also include the technical support channel). That's all good and well, but for the most part these blogs are just a one way communication. I would almost say that corporate communication is not clear about the two way and even the community building aspects of blogs. But this is not a big problem.
You can read about the Saudi Arabian Oracle Users Group in one of their executive blogs Eventually there will be areas in corporate communication that will fit community building. I was expecting technical area where engineers exchange tips and small snippets of code to be first, but I still don't see this. I think that the practice of soliciting articles from the user community is not pushed yet in the corporate world. But with time we will see what happens there.
There is one area of what I would call corporate communication which is screaming for a true full feature blog with lots of 'talk back' and articles from the field and tips... well you get the point. I just stumbled upon a really nice blog on the Roland web site. It's by a musician called Eugene “Man-Man” Roberts touring and using Roland equipment. The blog is a short snippets of his experience "on the road". I would have expected much more from a company which is so involved in the music business. although Roland is a high end instrument producer it still has to spread the word from endorsed musicians to the big universe of potential buyers. The music world is driven by information, specially very niche and very fresh. It is also a world of small communities living in larger ones. But there is still the problem of writing and managing a good blog. So maybe what Roland has done is enough for now. Which gives me the impression that there is lots of work to be done here. Good news for everyone: writers / reporters, blog managers, and promoters. Well, this is the small piece of my nosing around this week. It's still nice to see blogs of all kind doing all kind of tasks. It is starting to look like the technology evolution in the blogsphere is evolving in all kind of ways. To me that is a sign that the format will eventually mature. Thanks again for reading and let me know what you think, that always helps.
Oracle's blogs: Technology, Executive, Application: http://www.oracle.com/blogs/index.html
Roland on the road blog: Eugene “Man-Man” Roberts using Roland products http://www.rolandus.com/go/on_the_road_with/
Mathlab developers blog: "look under the hood" http://blogs.mathworks.com/
Eugene “Man-Man” Roberts on the Roland blog - a simple and elegant start!
You can think and plan while you surf...