Picking up on my post yesterday, Univ. of Florida journalism professor Mindy McAdams challenged me (and her other readers) to translate my quick list of what j-schools should be teaching into a something more testable and measurable that could be translated into a curriculum.

Here’s my first shot at that:

• Content management systems (including blogging tools): First, I’d have the students run a group blog on a topic of their choosing for a year to get comfortable with the content and commenting apects of blogging. (A group blog is likely to get more activity and discussion than individual blogs.) This blog should be based on an expandable, customizable tool like Wordpress. Then the students should be taught the basics of information architecture, and from that figure out how to expand or customize their blogs to deliver or integrate new kinds of content or services. This could be as simple as finding and installing Wordpress plugins to add features, or integrating content from other places (such as Flickr or del.icio.us). The goal would be to get them to not just understand, but demonstrate that on their own they can envision, research, evaluate, and act upon options to do more with their content online. There’s a lot you can do without getting too geeky. They need to gain the confidence that many options are within their personal grasp — they don’t always need to get permission or beg someone else to do things for them.

There’s a lot more on my list, of course…

• Mobile tools and mobile media strategies. These students all have cell phones anyway. Require them to subscribe to mobile news and information services, and critique the quality of the service and user experience. Also, require them to create whatever kind of content their phones support (photos, video, audio, GPS data, even just SMS to Twitter, etc.) and post or stream it from their cell phones. Include participatory exercises based on SMS or MMS to include students who don’t have data plans on their phones. Free services like NowPublic, Flickr, Qik and CNN’s iReport could be especially helpful and even fun for your exercises.

• Social media. The point here is to help students learn a key tool for engaging communities, while also gaining experience with how influence works and information travels through social media. I suggest starting with whatever social media services most of the students are already using (like Facebook, MySpace, Ning, LinkedIn, YouTube, or Twitter) and explore both the one-to-one and group interaction options through exercises. For groups, it’s probably better to get them involved with existing, active groups on these services — rather than try to start a new group from scratch. Where possible, use both web-based and mobile options for these services. They should learn to use these tools for community outreach, story/issue research, and promotion of their work.

• Economics and business theory/models. Journalism students should be taking courses in the media business that offer the fundamentals of historical, current, and emerging media business models. They should learn what budgets and balance sheets look like, how grant funding and investment works, and how to evaluate the economic environment they’re operating in — including how it’s changing. Get them used to seeing the big picture and looking ahead. Practical skills could include analyzing the economic environment of the local community, spotting emerging trends that could offer journalistic or other media opportunities, and writing a basic business plan to capitalize on those opportunities.

• Business skills. This could involve evaluating and estimating revenue options from grants to investors to advertising to subscriptions to partnerships and more, as well as knowing what steps to take to pursue that funding. Example exercise: Develop a strategy and action plan for increasing online revenues for the campus or local daily paper — including calculation of expenses and revenues, and a timeline for implementation. In addition, they should be aware of what it takes to start and run a business — requirements for taxes, healthcare, getting SMS shortcodes, working with advertisers, etc. No part of the business that supports their journalism should be alien to them.

• Management skills. I’m envisioning this both from an entrepreneurial and organizational perspective. In all exercises, put the students in a decisionmaking role and guide them through learning how to manage time, resources, and people — whether employees, collaborators, or community members. For instance, if a class project is increasing online revenues for the campus paper, divide that mission into sub-tasks, assign someone to manage each part of that project, and require them to make decisions and delegate. Teach them how to use tools like Basecamp to coordinate team efforts. In fact, it might be a good idea to coordinate projects with other j-schools around the country or world, since increasingly in the media business project teams are widely distributed. The point is to encourage them to take charge of the process, not just to pigeonhole themselves as content creators.

• Marketing, advertising, and SEO. In addition to taking a marketing basics class oriented toward media products and services, j-students should learn the basics of search engine optimization — since findability generally translates into traffic, engagement, and revenue for most media ventures. Exercises can include learning to use Wordtracker to optimize headlines, stories, and metadata to increase both traffic and relevance; using Google Analytics to analyze traffic patterns to a news/info site (such as for the campus paper) and suggest strategies to boost traffic and engagement; developing and running Adwords campaigns (with a modest budget) to promote a class project; researching niche ad networks that might help support various types of coverage or beats, etc.

• Community engagement and management. This is perhaps one of the most marketable skills any journalist can have for the next several years or decades. The point is to get them used to creating news as part of a conversation, rather than simply as a one-way product for publication. It’s about promoting constructive public discourse through active engagement. Exercises could include participating in an active community forum; working as a volunteer moderator for an active forum where contentious topics arise; taking and active role in editing and discussing a Wikipedia page of interest; helping to coordinate (not just cover) local events like town hall meetings, conferences, or festivals; participating in or running local meetup groups, etc. These experiences tech how to handle conflict, foster consensus and diversity, produce events, and demonstrate respect and understanding for communities in order to build credibility. In this respect, working through local government, advocacy groups, social service agencies, neighborhood associations, and ethnic or religious groups could be as valuable (maybe more valuable) than working through journalistic or media organizations.

…I realize that my list sounds like a hell of a lot of stuff, but I feel like I’ve only scratched the surface in terms of what today’s journalists really need in order to take advantage of current opportunities, spot emerging opportunities, and take charge of their own destinies (rather than relying on a paternalistic news org to shelter them while they write, write, write).

I realize also that there may be resistance in journalism schools to much of what I propose, for reasons ranging from “we’re not a vocational school,” to IT staff resisting implementing the kinds of tools I’ve mentioned, to the need to integrate curricula more closely with business schools, to the tenured faculty who must teach at least some of these topics not knowing or caring much about them.

I’m not saying this would be easy. But I do think what I’ve outlined, in addition to teaching core journalism skills and values, is what today’s j-students really need to prepare for the kinds of careers they are most likely to have — and the kinds of media they can play a key role in inventing or developing.

Thoughts?

(And thanks, Mindy, for making me think this through more.)

One of my most popular posts is: Stategic commenting: No blog is an island. It’s popular for a reason. Lots of people want to learn how to attractive more positive attention through conversational media (including, but not limited to, weblogs). That’s fine. Some of those people are marketers, PR professionals, or business owners. That’s fine, too.

Lately, though, I’ve noticed a disappointing tendency for marketers, PR people, and business people to attempt strategic commenting in a hamhanded and rather thoughtless fashion that’s bound to backfire.

Basically, these people search for blog posts that mention their company, industry, competitors, client, or employer and comment on those posts saying little more than “And speaking of X, we’re great, check us out!”

I hate to break it to those folks, but almost always this commenting approach does NOT constitute a constructive addition to a public conversation. It’s borderline spam, and therefore it reflects poorly on anyone who practices this approach.

Strategic commenting is primarily about contributing value to conversations; not blindly trying to co-opt conversations for your own benefit. If you don’t really know how to comment constructively, then it’s best not to try to use blog commenting to build your business.

Need an example? Here’s a bit of the bad, and the good…

A pretty blatant case of stupid strategic commenting happened right here on Contentious in October. I mentioned in passing in this post about how I use GTDinbox that I also use the online billing service Freshbooks. I’m generally satisfied with Freshbooks, and in that post I expressed no desire to switch.

However, the first comment that appeared on my post started like this:

“Amy, we’re going to have to try out GTDinbox and will be particularly interested to see if it works with Google Apps for Your Domain. Also — and I have to confess some self-interest here — I’d love to have you check out AcuInvoice, an invoicing service we released on October 7th. We believe that AcuInvoice will quickly become a competitor with FreshBooks, Blinksale, and others invoicing applications. We’re currently offering…”

Yadda yadda yadda… The commenter went on at length about the wonders of AcuInvoice. The problem? It was obvious that self-promotion was the sole purpose of this comment — as if my blog only existed as a springboard for his marketing! He only feigned a passing interest in the subject of my post and latched on one small detail to launch into a full-blown hard sell. This approach, I find, is extremely disrespectful to bloggers and their communities. No one likes to be treated like a commodity.

There are rare occasions when purely self-promotional comments are appropriate. For instance, I recently linkblogged several web pages about various adjustable-height work surfaces. It was pretty obvious from my comments that I’m looking to buy such a product. Therefore, when Carolyn Little commented about what her company, Baker Manufacturing, offers in this market, I thanked her for the lead. Her comment added value by supplying relevant information that also happened to serve as marketing for her company. Although I ultimately found her company’s site frustrating, her comment was fine.

But back to the bad stuff…

A less egregious but still clumsy and counterproductive example of un-strategic commenting happened here yesterday, in the comments to my post yesterday about my difficulties with finding prices online for adjustable-height work surfaces. In that post, I wrote:

“I want to be able to work with my laptop (my main — and only — computer) at an ergonomically correct height and angle, regardless of whether I’m perched on my balance ball, my kneeling chair, my regular chair, or standing.

“…I don’t want to e-mail or call your customer service reps. I don’t want to navigate the byzantine Herman Miller site, or call their stores. I just want the price for your adjustable-height table!!! That’s all! Really!”

That post attracted this comment from a Herman Miller representative:

“Sorry to see you’re frustrated with the ‘byzantine’ contract furniture industry. The industry is really focused on large contract commercial accounts, particularly with products like height adjustable tables, which tend to be large, complex installation and premium priced.

“HM does have a retail channel–HM for the Home, and you can shop them online through e-tailers (yes, the listing… www.hermanmiller.com/stores). We don’t offer a retail height adjustable table, but if all you’re looking for is a laptop surface, you might consider the “Scooter” stand, which travels well around the house and can be raised to 30″, though maybe not sufficient for your needs…. http://www.hermanmiller.com/CDA/SSA/Product/1,1592,a8-c1345-p156,00.html. Hope you find something.”

OK, I think this guy was at least trying nominally to be constructive (the first paragraph was constructive), but this comment ended up rather spammishly. Why?

• He mentioned and linked to their retail chain
• Then he admitted that they DON’T have the product I’m looking for. (So why mention their retail chain in a comment to MY post?)
• Then he tried to sell me on something they offered which clearly does not meet my basic requirements, which I spelled out at the top of this post. (I need a table that I can work at from standing position. 30 inches is not a reasonble height for a standing work surface for the average adult.)

In short, he knew his company had nothing to offer me, yet he couldn’t resist an opportunity to promote their irrelevant products. That certainly does me and my community no good — and (as this post illustrates), it only serves to backfire on his company.

But, this being the holiday season, let’s end on a positive note…

This morning I received an excellent example of constructive engagement in the face of criticism. I received the following e-mail from Ryan Schmidt, operations and product manager for Steelcase’s online store (which I complained about in this post). He wrote:

“Hi Amy. I’m a blog reader and a friend sent me your blog post re: trying to find a height adjustable workstation. Well, I’m the operations and product manager for the Steelcase Store and I read the entry with some dismay. The response that you received was just a little too boilerplate.

“Let me say that we do appreciate this type of feedback. We are basically a small start-up within the much-larger Steelcase and have the flexibility to adapt to feedback such as you provided. So I am going to go back and evaluate this product to see if it makes sense to add to our site. It has been very interesting to try to break through the traditional pricing structure of the industry which includes the ‘call for pricing’ aspect that you mentioned and that many consumers do not enjoy.

“So, before I get to my list of excuses (joke), I want to offer you 20% off our AirTouch height-adjustable table The pricing is similar and the Airtouch features our latest technology. If you are interested, just email me and let me know and I’ll get you a coupon code for purchase. If you are dead-set on the crank version of the workstation, let me know and I will see what I can do.

“I hope you’ll consider this offer. Please let me know if you have any other thoughts on our site or your experience with our team.”

OK, now that’s constructive AND professional! Well done, Ryan! As it turns out, the electic-powered product he offered me is way out of my price range (even with the generous discount offered) — but at least I was able to find that out easily, which was a relief. I hope they do add the hand-crank version of the table to the online store — and if they do, I’ll check it out to see if it’s closer to my price range. Regardless of whether that product is or isn’t added to their store or is affordable to me, I’m glad to see this attitude and level of engagement from their online store manager.

Anyway, the moral is: If you’re commenting on a blog (or e-mailing a blogger) focus on being relevant and constructive above all else. If in the course of being relevant and constructive you get to say something nice about your company or client, fine. But if self-promotion is obviously the main purpose of your comment, that’s a problem — and expect such online conduct to backfire.

Continuing on my curmudgeonly kick today… I’m trying to improve my ergonomics for working at home, so I’m seeking a small adjustable-height working surface. Sounds simple, right? Right….

Mostly I want to be able to work with my laptop (my main — and only — computer) at an ergonomically correct height and angle, regardless of whether I’m perched on my balance ball, my kneeling chair, my regular chair, or standing. It’s healthier to not be in the same position all day. (Yes, I do take breaks, stretch, and exercise, but being able to vary working position would make my spine and shoulders much happier.)

I’d be happy with a manually adjustable (hand-crank) work surface. I don’t want an elaborate workstation with a hydraulic lift system and self-adjusting seat. Just a small work surface that I can adjust up or down — and ideally set the angle back to front, too. I don’t want to spend a fortune on this, but I’m willing to spend a reasonable amount.

The hard part is finding out what these puppies actually cost…

Take, for instance, Steelcase — a well-known office furniture company. They offer something very close to what I want: Crank Adjustable Worksurface. I searched their online store for “crank adjustable worksurface” — and get no results. It’s as if their own online store hasn’t even heard of the product. Hmph.

So I contact the company via their online form, and get this reply:

Amy,

Please contact your local Steelcase dealer for pricing/availability, as the Steelcase Store does not carry the whole line of Steelcase products. That information can be found on http://www.steelcase.com/na/dealer_finder_dealers.aspx?f=13972. If you need further assistance please let us know.

Gee, thanks — NOT! Their online store search engine could have said: “This item is only available through our local retailers. Please contact your local retailer to ask about availability, options, and pricing.”

…But even more profoundly, their local retailer is in Littleton, CO — a considerable distance and many traffic jams away from my home in Boulder. Plus, I don’t like calling a company on the phone just to get simple item pricing — I always have to wait on hold, deal with two or three people who don’t understand what I’m looking for, and finally a manager who tries to upsell me to a larger package I have no interest in.

I just want the price for this one small piece of furniture. That’s all. I should have known when I saw the site navigation item “how to buy” that I was in trouble. If a site needs to explain to me how to buy from them, that’s a red flag.

It’s not just Steelcase’s problem, of course.

When I linkblogged the Steelcase table yesterday, Carolyn Little of Baker Manufacturing left this comment touting her company’s NEXT product line of adjustable-height tables. But there’s no pricing info on the site. After finally plowing down through the FAQ section on the Baker site, I found this note:

11. Where can I find product information and prices?

Product information and pricing can be found through Baker’s Regional Sales Managers and Customer Service. You may also contact any Herman Miller dealer to get product information. To find a dealer in your area click on the following link. Herman Miller dealer locator.

Arrrrgh!!! Why do you have to make it so difficult???? I don’t want to e-mail or call your customer service reps. I don’t want to navigate the byzantine Herman Miller site, or call their stores. I just want the price for your adjustable-height table!!! That’s all! Really!

Why should this be so hard?

I think I might have better luck just posting a “wanted” ad on the Boulder Craiglist.

What does "Digg bait" look like? These screen grabs from a site that sells dental insurance via an affiliate program show how out-of-place the article "Geek’s Guide to Getting in Shape" is. (Click to enlarge)

Well, I knew it would happen. Spammers have figured out how to game social media news aggregation sites like Digg, Reddit, and Newsvine.

On Nov. 21, blogger Niall Kennedy examined one example of this kind of spamming in detail, explaining how it happened and why it’s a problem.

Here’s his explanation of how this particular instance of social media spam worked:

"Last weekend I noticed a Digg submission about weight loss tips had climbed the site’s front page, earning a covetous position in the top 5 technology stories of the moment. The 13 sure-fire tips were authored by ‘Dental Geek’ and posted to the ‘Discount Dental Plan’ category on his WordPress blog. Scanning the sidebar links and adjacent content it was obvious this content was out of place on a page optimized for dental insurance. The Webmaster of i-dentalresources.com had inserted some Digg bait, seeded a few social bookmarking services, and waited for links and page views to roll in, creating a new node in a spam farm fueled by high-paying affiliate programs and identity collection for resale."

Ick! Now, I’m all for posting valuable content as a way to engage communities and attract audiences. But this really crosses a line, I think…

Clearly a lot of people found this particular article useful — just check out the comments. That said, relevance is the true currency of online communities. Using apparently relevant content as bait to lure people to an irrelevant destination is indeed an insidious type of spamming, I think.

WHAT’S THE SOLUTION?

Well, I don’t know — but Ravi, who commented on Kennedy’s post, offered this idea: "I hope that social networking sites evolve to behave more like Wikipedia, in the sense that the crowd can become smart enough to quickly detect and ‘blacklist’ sites that are obviously out there just to game the system."

Also, bdeseattle offered this idea: "I find it fascinating to watch Digg Swarm and actually see how readers gravitate from story to story in real time. I’d love to mine that data and have the ability to trace diggs user by user, story by story, and then look for common patterns for how
users navigate in real time from story to story. Would also likely help with exposing spammers and others who are exploiting the social networks. Maybe we need to whip up some spambots that crawl the social networks and nuke all spam-related content/comments/etc. Your post
underscores the importance of baking anti-spamming ninjas directly into socially-driven systems in the hopes of slaying the spammers."

Meanwhile, Jupiter Research analyst Barry Parr observed, "Our research shows that consumers see social news sites as less trustworthy than news media or portal sites — by a fairly wide margin. Stories like this tell us it’s going to take a while for social news aggregators to win the trust they need to be more than a fringe source for most consumers."

(NOTE: I originally posted this item on Poynter’s E-Media Tidbits blog. I’m cross-posting it here because I think it’s also relevant to Contentious readers.)

On Nov. 6, Technorati published its latest quarterly state of the blogosphere report. Currently, this search service tracks 57 million feeds, mostly from blogs — with a strong focus on English-language blogs, especially from North America.

One of the most controversial sections of this report discusses a key concern for any media: influence or perceived authority. Personally, I think Technorati’s interpretation is rather awry…

Technorati measures influence by counting inbound links to blogs.
This report ranks the approximately 1.5 million blogs it tracks which
have attracted at least three inbound links into these groups:

• Low Authority: Three to nine blogs linking in the last six months (1,111,882 blogs, average 12 posts/month)
• Middle Authority: 10-99 blogs linking in the last six months (416,073 blogs, average 18 posts/month)
• High Authority: 100-499 blogs linking in the last six months (26,418 blogs, average 25 posts/month)
• Very High Authority: 500 or more blogs linking in the last six months (4,070 blogs, average 53 posts/month)

What’s wrong with this picture? Well, Technorati’s ranking mostly reflects popularity and the effects of posting frequency. In some cases these may correlate with influence or authority — but not always.

First of all, people link to blogs for all sorts of reasons — not always because they consider a particular posting authoritative. Often people link to blog postings in order to question, disagree with, refute, or even ridicule them. Or they may link to blogs strictly for entertainment. Also, people often link to blogs in the hope of attracting return links — and thus traffic. Most serious bloggers watch their referral logs closely, and this strategy does often work.

Posting frequency also can drive inbound links, because if you give people more stuff to read, it’s more likely they’ll find something worth a link. But more frequent posts aren’t always better or more authoritative. In fact, often I’ve found just the opposite. Some of the blogs I consider most influential don’t post daily. Thoughtfulness counts in many circles.

The truth is, influence depends entirely upon the audiences each blog reaches. Sometimes those audiences or communities are very small in terms of numbers. For instance, Alaskablawg is a pretty authoritative blog for certain types of legal and political issues affecting Alaska. It undoubtedly attracts a much smaller audience and fewer inbound links than Firedoglake, currently the top-ranked blog in the "law" category in Technorati’s blog directory. Does that make Alaskablawg less influential or authoritative? Probably not — at least not among the communities it aims to reach.

Influence also depends on the range of topics a blog addresses. A given blogger may be considered extremely authoritative on green chemistry, but less so on parenting or Chinese cooking (even though her blog may address all three topics).

I don’t think Technorati’s view of influence is entirely amiss. Inbound links can indeed be one factor to gauge influence — but it can never be the only one. Companies like BuzzLogic have a better grasp of what really constitutes influence in conversational media. Of course, Buzzlogic isn’t free, and Technorati is. And in this case of Technorati’s analysis, I think you get what you pay for.

Now that it’s up and the crew of volunteer bloggers is mostly trained in how to use our blogging tool, Typepad, they’re starting to request more guidance on content. Most of these contributing bloggers come from print media. They know how to write, but they’ve never blogged before — and most of them also have little or no experience in creating any content specifically for online media.

Consequently, they aren’t familiar with conference blogs. That’s fine — many people aren’t, although that’s starting to change. I’ve worked on some conference blogging efforts, so I’ve pulled together a list of 10 kinds of posts that work well on conference blogs.

As with any conversational-media effort, it helps to know your audience, as well as your community of contributors (both bloggers and commenters). What skills and expertise do they bring to the table? What do they want? Ultimately, that should be your guide.

Here’s my list…

(READ THE REST OF THIS ARTICLE at my other weblog, The Right Conversation. You can also leave comments there if you wish.)

"I have had many clients ask me about the risks of blogging. How do you keep competitors and arch enemies from taking over the conversation and dissolving the ‘conversation’ into a shouting match?"

Her answers:

1. Moderate comments.
2. Have a written comment policy to manage expectations.
3. Be in it for the long haul.
4. Ban grossly abusive comments, but let most negative comments ride.
5. Turn comments off if necessary, preferably temporarily.

A few quibbles notwithstanding, I mostly agree with Kami’s advice.

That said, I also believe it’s important for everyone who chooses to participate in conversational media to learn how to handle the inevitable unpleasant bumps of conflict and even flames.That’s not something you can learn theoretically. Personally I think you need to live through it. Only then can you put Kami’s advice into balanced practice. Otherwise, you might be tempted to protect yourself into total vulnerability.

Of course, surviving public conversational conflicts is not fun — but it’s crucial. If there’s one thing you learn fast in conversational media, it’s that you can never really control the conversation. Most of it happens in venues that are beyond your control, anyway The best you can do is influence it.

I raised that issue in this comment to Kami’s post…

READ THE REST of this article over at my other blog, The Right Conversation…

Everyone messes up sometime. However, acknowledging your role in a problem, apologizing for it, and making amends is not a sign of weakness. In fact, it’s often the bravest, strongest, smartest, and most constructive thing an individual, publisher, or organization can do. Especially because conversational media has a way of amplifying any failure to apologize, thus making the consequences of your original screw-up much worse in the long run.

Here are all the hints on this theme that fate has handed me in the last 24 hours…

READ MORE at my other blog, The Right Conversation…

Somewhere in that multilayered discussion, I saw someone mention what seems like a way to take constructive action against sploggers that’s more meaningful than shutting down a single splog. My apologies, I can’t recall who offered this suggestion.

Anyway, Google Adsense is the most common financial incentive program used by sploggers. I can’t remember seeing a single splog that didn’t carry Google ads. One Adsense account can support a multitude of splogs. Google ostensibly doesn’t approve of splogs, and apparently will cancel Adsense accounts for sploggers who abuse the program.

Therefore, when you find a splog, you can report it to Google and ask them to close the associated Adsense account.

Back on July 10, Quick Online Tips explained how to do that…

Here’s their advice:

Report to Google Adsense

“There are high chances that such blogs are earning advertising revenue from Google Adsense pay per click program that earns money quickly. You can also report to other affiliate programs they are running onsite like Chitika, Eminimalls, Commission Junction, Adbrite etc.

1. “Click on the “Ads by Gooooogle�? link. It takes you to a page where you can give feedback about ads. Click the link “Send Google your thoughts on the ads you just saw�? and a form drops down. In the subject, select “report a violation�?. Add an e-mail (optional) if you want a reply back.
2. “Email Google Adsense and report a policy violation. Subject the e-mail as ‘AdSense Policy Violation’, describe in detail the problem and send this e-mail to adsense-abuse@google.com.”

That article also gives instructions for reporting sploggers to various search engines. Even though some of this advice applies only to splogs based on Blogger, much of it can apply to other types of splogs. I’ve Furled it for future reference.

I haven’t tried this strategy personally, but it sounds like good advice and I will try it with the next splogger who really bugs me. Because, after thinking it over, sploggers are a huge problem and all of us who value the usefulness of the internet bear some responsibility to discourage them. Ultimately we don’t have power over them (generally), but collectively we can influence the powers that be.

So I guess the Head Lemur and others were right to point out that doing nothing will only make this problem worse. Now that I have an idea of something constructive to do on this issue, I’ll do it.

I still think, however, that chasing down individual sploggers is a waste of energy unless you personally find that activity rewarding. They simply breed too rapidly for stomping them one at a time to make any real difference. I realize others disagree with me on that, of course.

Dave lists several reasons why CEOs of major companies are probably not the best people to blog for a company — at least in public, external blogs. (Intranets might be another matter.) One reason that I think is particularly compelling is this:

"Quick, how many CEOs can you name? How many from companies with more than $10 million in sales or more than 500 employees? I thought so.

…In my experience, people outside the company actually don’t care much whether the CEO blogs. While company blogs can be popular, I think that mainly depends on the quality of the conversation that happens there.

A quality corporate blog requires putting someone on the job with these qualifications…

READ THE FULL ARTICLE at my other blog, The Right Conversation…