Learning from other's blogs, content, and promotion

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.

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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!

Summer work: thinking, planning, starting - Start a blog, wiki, network

You can think and plan while you surf...

Daniel, a friend just came back from a vacation in Turkey. The Mediterranean beaches in southern Turkey have become a big resort area. Isolated resorts like the Turkish coast and the central western coast of Mexico (Cancun, Puerto Vallarta, Cozumel, Mazatlan, Acapulco, Ixtapa) are a wonderful place to "get away". In business this is one of the best opportunity to think and plan. My friend didn't just vacation, he put together a whole plan for a blog and a new marketing strategy. His only rule for the vacation is not to take a laptop and not to check e-Mail (that was already taken care of). But he did take with him a few books and a list of ideas on blogs, wikis, social networking and other new interesting marketing technologies. I don't think that Daniel had a concrete idea of what he wanted to do with this material. For us techies it's a little scary to leave home without our laptop. But Daniel figured out, maybe there is a way to slow down the "doing" and "pushing forward" activities of daily work-life and think deeply about a new marketing project. If you look at the new web technologies, they tend to fall into a few categories. I would suggest to classify the technologies in terms of their format, uses, and relevancy to your needs first. This will help you put together a short outline or even a complete mock-up of the project. Here are the categories / applications:

1. Blog: the most popular form of Web2.0 technology. Format: linear chronology; Uses: related articles and divided long series of articles, progressive tracking of news and trends. Relevancy: in the tech world: "Learn 'something' in 21 days". Roll out a new product, a feature per day. Interview 10 of the top applications.
   
2. Wiki: the most popular form of organized information (WikiPedia). Format: flat organization of related information; Uses: encyclopedia, similar factual articles, division by area of interest. Relevancy: in the tech world: knowledge base with more structure than just searchable database.
   
3. Social network: a unique application to connect groups see Linked-In Format: personal profiles or pages with connections to individuals and groups. Uses: connect individuals with similar interest like user groups, product users, or technology developers. Relevancy: just emerging in the corporate and technology world as a method to connect individual with similar interests. Linked-In seem to be the business leader, MySpace and Facebook are on the consumer side.
   
4. File sharing, storage: deliver without sending or shipping Format: file storage with limited or open access. Uses: file and program distribution. Technical support / program upgrade. Distribution of marketing documentation without printing, shipping, and address management.
   

The next step Daniel started thinking of ways to use blogs, wikis, social networks, and other Web2.0 technologies in his marketing. Very quickly he realized that both blogs and social networks were a perfect use for many of his marketing material announcements. He also realized that many people in his organization wanted to contribute to running and writing on the blogs. This was also true for the social networks like MySpace and Facebook. When these applications first became popular it was not "proper" for high-tech companies to use them. Mostly because they seemed to attract more free spirit and non-business types. But Daniel realized that this is no longer true. Also he realized that there are so many serious business blogs out there that he was starting to show more of a follower attitude in the market. Already most of his small customers and many of his large customers had blogs, specially for the more customer centric tasks. The application examples, news publication and web reference stories, partner web stories including their blogs, customer blogs and other related stories could all go onto a blog and be easily maintained by the marketing staff. Actually, for the first time in a long time web publication work, design, and promotion did not have to be done by a "specialist". Some work was so specialized in the past, such as page design and database design and administration that it required outside experts to complete the work (at a very high price). Daniel realized that all these were issues that essentially STOPPED his marketing from going forward at full speed. For the first time, by not sitting in front of a keyboard or in a long meeting with all his staff he was able to gain perspective of what can be done right now and how to get started.

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I hope this short story helps you in using the summer for some good thinking and planning. And don't let anyone keep you away from the surf!

From presentation to the Web (2.0) - Get RRREEEEAAADDDYYY

I only touched on presentations in the last few articles.* This was done to give a starting point to the core subject of the blog: marketing with Web2.0 techniques. One of the first steps is to take existing material, first I will start with a presentation, which will be cut and modified to fit Web2.0 format. Doing this in real life is probably the best way to get started. With Web2.0 most of the tools are easy to get started with. Blogs, wikis, social networking, personal pages, and resource linking is available in many shapes and flavors. The popular services and tools also have million of examples. If you are not familiar with these, I would suggest that you go and get familiar. The best way is to actually sign up for these services and get your own "page" or "listing" started. Writing a blog or developing a wiki takes lots of work. Writing the content may actually be the simplest of the parts. If you write and create presentations on a regular basis this is not going to be your hardest task. But even if you write regularly, you will find out quickly that Web2.0 is essentially an "infinite resource". You can write, draw, sing, play, link-to, communicate... as much as you want. This means that you need to focus on exactly what you need to communicate. Work out a strategy and tactics to develop an ongoing program. Than roll up your sleeves and make it happen.

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Whatever method works for you, my observation in people who started with Web2.0 tools can be successful in doing one of these:
• Just Do IT: simply go to an application and start it up.
• Learn and explore: pick one or more application, sign-up, but just look and learn.
• Buy the book, take a class, do the tutorial: this helps for some who need that first push.
• Get a tutor / guide: sit with someone and go through the basic steps: this always helps get over the "fear of starting"
• Get into a group: start commenting on a blog before you have one, add a page to a wiki in an area of your expertise, get invited into Linked-In by a friend, etc.

Web2.0 Tag Cloud - already too many tools and services...

Whatever your "style" I would suggest a few things to get you organized. Simply start thinking as if you are already in the groove and going.

• This means gather the material that you need, get your plan started, outline actual articles or even edit existing material to fit into the format you will need.
• If you work with schedules: deadlines and milestones, start sketching out your work.
• If you like organizing in a project format, make this an active project with all the related documentation and tasks involved.
• If you are in a corporate or government environment and you need to do more formal planning, write a proposal, and solicit agreement to secure resources (funding, headcount, equipment) than go ahead and start there. Whatever method works for you, get started.

Web2.0 is not just an experiment or a technology fad. Actually, it is a huge trend in the use of the Internet. Tim O'Reilly actually coined the term by observing how things were developing in the real world and than crafting a theory around the "outside world" of core computer development world. This type of observation is not a common way of doing things in the computer/Internet world. Until now, ideas, uses, products, essentially "technology" always came from the technologist world. The proverbial "young gun" / "hot shot" isolated "genius" crafting a new product in the form of a site. Essentially, Tim O'Reilly noticed that the "new web" enables users to be the real "content creators". Internet developers has hoped for this since the very beginning of the Web. But the applications and the technology did not develop as quickly as expected. But now, we - the marketing professionals as individuals and leaders of small organizations**, have the means to do what only large teams of programmers, editors, and web-masters.

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Thinking strategically about marketing with Web2.0

What that mean to technology marketers is the beginning of an opportunity to get in touch with a whole new market using new tools. First of all, since the technology and the behavior of the market is new we can track it and adjust our way of working as it is developed. Second, we can lead competitors and partners in innovating. Not the innovation that just comes from a new technology, but the innovation into areas which have stayed static. This includes: positioning, message, target market, packaging, and even pricing. Changing marketing strategy is not a strange concept when new form of marketing distribution channel. I call "marketing distribution channel" anything that is the method a marketing message connects a technologist to the market. The Internet has had at least two big innovations in "marketing distribution channels". The first came with e-Mail and early networking (pre-web era). This shift in general terms was not as visible as the next one, but in the technical world marketing with e-Mail, BBS, and News groups was nothing less than a revolution. Many companies gained a huge advantage over others with the early Internet technology. Just like the more popular Internet (i.e. web) technology change, the early technologies really separated the quick to adopt from the slow ones. The same happened with much bigger effect when the current Web technology hit. We all see how people buy books at Amazon, how Dell sells computers, and Yahoo provides e-Mail service. Web2.0 is just starting out, currently MySpace, Facebook, Linked-In, Blogger, WikiPedia, are getting lots of media attention. But in the business world, especially in technology marketing, these tools are not being used. But this will change, as these tools become more robust, reliable, and popular, their use will grow quickly. This is one good reason to think about Web2.0 as a strategic investment in marketing.

NEXT TIME: Industry examples from Web2.0 technology.

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*   If you need more information or training on creating and giving presentations take a look at blogs and books in this area. I believe that you can never give a "good enough" presentation. I also see that in the technical world, both technical and business people need more work in this area. This is specially true in creating presentation material. This area could use a whole blog series by itself.
** I call marketing small organizations because relatively to other corporate roles marketing is still mostly the smallest effort in MOST companies. Please excuse my generalization if this is not true for you or your organization.