I’m cleaning out old boxes and files. Every so often I come across a keeper, something someone gave to me or shared. This quote by George Bernard Shaw was given to me in the early 90′s during a coaching session I was in, where they also did a little exercise on Stuart Henshall; “the vision”, “view from the end of life” and “outline of the business”. I found it inspirational then and it is worth reflecting on again today.

“This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being a force of Nature instead of a feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy. 

I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community and as long as I live it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can. 

I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work the more I live. I rejoice in life for its own sake. Life is no “brief candle” to me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got hold of for the moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations.”

George Bernard Shaw

from Man and Superman, Dedicatory letter

I’ll let you interpret his words your way.  Brendan Phillips  provides a more spiritual context. Unlike the explanation, I do continue to believe we can change the world. As for the exercise I was involved in some 20 years later I know my real strengths are still my real strengths and I have a lot to do! I do wonder if George’s words burn a little hollow today or for how many they burn? At the time, I found it motivational relative to building an organization and directing my energies and sense of balance. Bringing light to the big picture, being a torch, still motivates me. I sense that was why my thoughtful psychologists gave it to me in the first place.

Plus as it is now in my blog… the paper can go off to the shredder! One less item of clutter!

Some interesting reading via The World Question Center 2010.

This year’s Question is “How is the Internet changing the way YOU think?” Not “How is the Internet changing the way WE think?” We spent a lot of time going back on forth on “YOU” vs. “WE” and came to the conclusion to go with “YOU”, the reason being that Edge is a conversation. “WE” responses tend to come across like expert papers, public pronouncements, or talks delivered from stage.

This is an experiment too. Using #link and bit.ly to hit the original content via Twitter. The title and then my link to my blog will be inserted by Twitter tools. Unfortunately this will be preceded by #unboundspiral and #link and bit.lyURL in twitter too. Not sure I like all that.

I really do need this PressThis bookmarket to be changed to incorporate Twitter more effectively.

Yesterday I was tweaking my blog and generally updating myself with plug-ins and what others are doing with them. When I started blogging back in 2002 I was already thinking about lifestreams. Over the years I’ve blogged about and tried out Linkblogs (before bookmarking / del.icio.us) to both track content I see, help share it, and along with my own content create a searchable knowledge store for me. As a consultant this has been incredibly useful. Nothing credentials your thinking better than what you wrote and shared, sometimes years ago.

Yet that was then… and what is now? What’s happened to Blogging Lifestreams? What happens if we jump ahead a couple of years too?

Questions  on Lifestreams
Have we made progress? What should my cloud look like? Why personal? What content would make it more interesting? Is it easier or more difficult? Is there still a point? Are we better or worse at remembering or harnasing our lifestream?

Progress, Lifestreams and the Blog – has this happened?
Yes, Yes and Yes!!! Yes we’ve continued to wire up the world. Blogging and particularly the status updates / microblog have made participation easier. Blogging or the Blogosphere was open at least in connecting each other up. Trackbacks (remember that!) were a great way of linking posts and retaining your commentary. Links were currency. Comments as always were wonderful, an affirmation that it wasn’t all for nothing. Yet blogging was perhaps a daily ritual for a few. It took time to generate good content. (In fact it still does and there is often a paucity of it).

And, along the way, something changed.

a. Presence and the Buddylist: Once we used IRC channels (some still do), and yahoo, AIM or MSN. Along with e-mail lists there were plenty of private conversations…. the back channel (IRC which became the public channel in many conferences). We learned that online indicators, (online, away, DND etc) weren’t really indicative of status. We still contacted those we were comfortable with. Or sent them a “please add me” on Skype, plus a chat message and suggested we talk. Until Skype, real networks of strangers that weren’t strangers wasn’t really possible. The communcation costs were too expensive. Yet the number of people that met at a conference, that talked on Skype for hours after reading each other’s posts and making comments is not just a legend. It is fact. These are connections that happened “outside” one’s buddylist.

b. Real-Time:
Then things sped up. Twitter turned up. It took a couple of years and all of a sudden people could Tweet or microblog. Potential for posts went up. Two types became important. Those that pointed to interesting content and those that answered questions or made direct comments. Unfortunately, Twitter broke or borked #fixreplies re @messages. Still the obvious was there. Just like many forums moved to blogs, many comments moved to Twitter. No serious blogger blogs without Tweeting today. Even if it is just the titles of their blog posts.

Increasingly it is Twitter Search and lists that turn up content of interest. Twitter is faster than the news about many things. Concurrently Twitter also works effectively on the mobile. It’s easy to Tweet but not blog on a mobile. Even better if there are video or audio elements. Use a great smartphone and one of the good apps and it is easy to photoblog, audioblog, videoblog and more. Unfortunately, all that content is being sent off to other sites. You lose control of it.

We also have “notification services” eg Boxcar or Notifications on the iPhone that enable even more ‘instant’ updates. It’s powerful. These tie back to Twitter or Facebook. Conversations happen in real-time. Opt-in or Opt-out.

I made the point back in 2002 that bloggers could learn faster. Now the world learns faster through Twitter and nobody seems to doubt it. Add in Facebook and it’s confirmed!

c. The Personal Cloud
If you have used Twitter search and followed your name you quickly find that things you may have tweeted disappear. In fact many have lamented the issues with losing pictures on Flickr, or when another photo service closes down. In the meantime the Internet Archives is trying to deal with shortURL’s like bit.ly/xxxx. Twitter is expanding the number of people sharing data exponentially. The question is really two-fold. Does this world scale effectively, or are we better off making a different choice. PKM was all about Personal Knowledge Management.

The Personal Cloud is about more than that. Increasingly you have no control over your data, and often can’t export it. Try searching for it. Really do you think Google will turn up your important tweets with friend x? It won’t. Even Twitter can’t. These things should perhaps have a half-life. Yet put that life under your control. All my Tweets end up back in in my blog. I’ve also increasingly recognized the importance of capturing my pictures, and more. While there are benefits to a SlideShare community or Flickr, or even YouTube if you store your data there it is outside your control.

I increasingly want my Blog to manage my Personal Cloud. I want it to place content where ever I want to share it. In fact it has to become much better at managing the number of signals I want to release and share.

d. Cloud Management and the Mobile
The mobile has won. I will control and update my cloud through my mobile. With a few enhancements all my content can go that way. Whether you use TwittelatorPro, EchofonPro, or Tweetie2, you have the IM and signaling client in the palm of your hand. You also have the location element available to you. Thoughtful blogs are shrinking. Content is being aggregated. The NYTimes, Engadget, Gigaom, The Guardian, and many more are all providing authoritative content that is easy to share. I read it on my iPhone. I tweet it and share. I have the link to the content saved etc. It is now searchable on my blog too.

A singular gesture.

Contrast sharing a post via Twitter and doing the same via GoogleReader. Reader is too hard. By contrast going to a blog and hitting a TweetThis button is easier. The most important sources will be an app in the palm of your hand and what your friends turn up, or what what searches are returning on matters of interest. Add a twitter qualifier to that (eg x RT, not to be missed) and you have more than enough to keep your informed.

Unlike yesterday… conversations that matter lie outside your buddylist or following list. We’ve made the connections with those we read and understand. We keep reading their blogs too. Yet their tweets are more important today. They are the things that keep us in touch. Knowing who my friends talk to is important. Twitter is continuing to bury that.

e. Signaling.
This has become or been a passion of mine. Phweet is my example of how to quickly and with little friction escalate conversations rapidly to voice / video exchanges. Andy Abramson wrote the other day about Visual Communications. When you look at QIK and Ustream it become easy to see the power that exists with video in real-time. We just aren’t good at it yet. When locations / GPS data is included, signals outside the buddylist become more important. Twitter is important as a pipe at least for now.

There are some things I’d like to see.

1. Take the TweetPress idea (can post Twitter related pictures direct to my blog rather than Twitpic) and enable me to host all my Tweet related content. Eg Videos, Audio, Photos, bookmarked content (permanent copy like furl.net used to do) in my WordPress install.
2. Make it easy for me to tie my blog identity to my TwitterID. This is my public persona anyways. Now make it easy to subscribe to both Twitter and RSS/Atom ie the Feed a the same time. When I do… I want to get the capability to capture all content in the feeds I follow and then view with @messages and without @messages etc. with some basic filtering.
3. I’d prefer to do all post to Twitter via my blog using a TwitterApp and TwitterPlug-In integration. However if my blog is capturing all the “content” behind the links then I can capture the tweet and thus bring the two together.
4. Tweetback. Can’t we change the comment format. Eg a Tweet comment and a Tweetback comment. Eg one is just an @message and the second is an @message with URL to the comment body content. There are many ways this @message could be handled. Of course it really requires an oAuth log-in. But that would be fine… I’d again get “readers” like mybloglog that I could display with their mini-profile. Eg give me Tweeters that read my blog. Today I don’t want to leave you a comment. I want to leave you a Tweet. Even better if it is a supertweet which captures the content of the detailed comment back on my blog.
5. Location: GPS / Maps. I need to generate URI’s that contain GPS / location information. I must be able to bring location based data into my blog posts. Eg that location information that is published via Twitter in the Tweet. I must also be able to bring that GPS info into any blog automatically via feeds / feeds aggregation. (if blogs and tweets and bit.ly are tied together perhaps my posts can just aggregate their info and use their GPS data???

Quantity or Quality? Or Availability and Access?
When I founded and began writing Skype Journal I found I needed 3 to 5 posts per day to really drive traffic. At the same time Nick Denton was creating some of his very successful blogs (eg Gawker) and they followed much the same path. It’s still the same… you need a lot of content today to keep readers coming back. Yet many have gathered many followers via Twitter that exceeded anything they ever managed to achieve on a blog. I wrote posts on “Conversational Blogging” and today those conversations are in Twitter. The nice thing is.. they are effectively available to anyone. No need to follow or be followed. Just a simple @message. It’s much tidier than making a phone call and yet just as easy. You know their TwitterID. It is effectively the Social White Pages without phone numbers. In that way Twitter has usurped the trackback too.

Progress?
I posed the question have we made progress. Yes of course and yet it is slower than I’d like it to be (as always). WordPress is definitely my content platform of choice and yet it doesn’t really help me all that much yet in the world that is emerging. In my view WordPress is moving too slowly.

Twitter Apps on mobiles have accelerated the pace of learning. They have also opened up communications and begun to redefine it. I’m increasingly likely to make posts that matter via these Apps. When will TwittilatorPro or another allow me to use the XMLRPC interface to post a “super tweet” to blog and twitter simultaneously?

2012: Here Yet? Updating
Then I will be celebrating 10 years of blogging. Actually, blogging will continue to disappear. We know it as publishing already although on a personal basis, signals, updates, shares, pointers, links, messages, replies, are more likely to be what we really do. Lifestreams remain and will be more documented and better maintained than ever. Blogging… well it just got the conversation started. Still does and it is a good POV, funny story, or something current, very personal, or instructive that gets attention.

And yet, here I am 2010 and I’m still wedded to the idea that my blog has real value – even if only to me.

In 2003 I wrote a few posts on “Conversational Blogging“. Today my sentiments are similar yet the approach to conversational blogging has changed primarily facilitated by Facebook and Twitter. Today Twitter must be part of your blogging persona, to be successful and part of joining a “jazz community”

Conversational Blogging (Unbound Spiral) (April 21, 2003)

Similarly when we thing about Knowledge Innovation I think the concept of value and knowledge flows is very relevant, however, are blog-centric views limiting perspective? Blogs are only one item on the personal dashboard and current conversational instrumentation is too limited. If the publishing projects are part of a personal ecosystems repository then capture, feedback, related comments, conversations can be captured by even non-writers.

Not much has changed. The conversational spaces have further fragmented and we are falling ever further behind in managing the flow. We still don’t have the simple tools to manage our “open” and “public” conversations. See Pew for how Twitter  is impacting. We used to worry about Blog authority (see this Brian Solis piece). We’ve moved from linking blogs via Trackbacks to “shortURL’s” and re-tweets. The flow of these conversations is faster today. We’ve got an active app market around Twitter that is generating all sorts of tools. Yet these same tools don’t enhance the blog world concurrently.

The conversation now takes place in a myriad of ways. See where Twitter drives traffic. Customized by each individual to their perceived needs and interests. We’ve become more efficient about our comments and realize that “commenting” out loud via Twitter may bring more visibility for our thoughts and how we develop our points of view. It’s also more likely to generate a conversation than just leaving it on a blog!

Example:
The other day I tweeted about “innovation” specifically the importance of “fascination”. It struck a chord with me. It fit with my idea of “ruthless curiousity”. So I tweeted a link. That link was then RT’d 3 times. The author may or may not have any idea about this interest. The blog post that stimulated it contains no record of this. My guess is from a Google perspective that post is missed in terms of the link love and value it created. Other readers going directly to the blog won’t be aware of the Twitter mentions won’t see them and will miss them. The half-life of the blog and it’s historical value is reduced.

Link Love Lost:
Heavy users of Twitter send a lot of link love. Often tracing to other posts. Few of these links get recorded on the blog that is being commented on / linked to. (Unless you use an approach like mine where I use a Del.icio.us to Twitter link. The purpose to create a trackback – more detailed comment and “tweet” my interest)

Similarly, if someone comments on my blog into Twitter without reference to my TwitterID I probably won’t know about it. From my perspective that’s a shame. A conversation or my ability to contribute to the discussion goes down. I don’t have a “search” twitter notifies me of links in twitter to pages in my blogs. I also want these in real-time if I am going to participate in the conversation.

Equally if someone comes to the post and sees all the comments, trackbacks, and tweets with it…. it provides a broader perspective. It’s not just comments then but links to personalities, to profiles, and a quick view into other things that interest them.

Tweet Tracking:
This issue of tweet tracking also points to the problem of time. Today’s news or blog flash is just that. The conversation may be over in hours or a day rather than over a couple of days. So in my mind the blog post now needs to capture the larger conversation in real-time. Sometimes when an item is just RT’d there is no need to thank them. In my view of the world it does leave me better informed. This message got the attention of these Tweeters. There’s also a good chance too that I don’t follow them, and we may have interests in common. Thus they may just be good pointers to where the conversation may lie in the future. Or not!

So what do we need….

1. A better way to go from a blog to a Tweet comment and a way to record that tweet comment on the blog.
2. A way for a re-tweet to be captured as a trackback to the blog.
3. A method that works with any “shortURL” format to capture back content.

What exists now?

Tweet this Post:

1. Plug-ins for Tweet this post. I added “Tweet this post” to this WordPress blog. I replaced ShareThis which I felt was never used anyways and doesn’t update Twitter. The downside of this plug-in is. It makes it easy for someone to quote into twitter about my post. It fails to provide me with any information or way to track that. It also fails to register the Tweet against the post.
2. Stowe Boyd showed me how on his blog he was testing a “Bit.ly” link system. Thus any blogpost he wrote could be tracked into Bit.ly and seen in Twitter. (Where a bit.ly link was used). Thus if I click the bit.ly link on his post it creates a bit.ly link which opens bit.ly and then allows me to share the post.

Commenting Increasingly Takes Place Off Blogs:
If I’m in TweetDeck and see a blog I may simple create a shortURL and update. In my case I use Del.icio.us for the most part. (see this post). Other simple methods include “Twurl” which is a simple bookmarklet that can post to Twitter and Friendfeed. In all of these cases the comment is being generated outside the blog. Where could this be made better? A great example would be Bit.ly and TweetDeck. The combination could send a “Tweet trackback” to the referenced page. This makes comments for the Tweeter more valuable. Take it one step further and it could send a DM notifying the blogger of the tweeted comment.

Separate note to some readers: The philosophy above focused on escalating the conversation may also provide an understanding of why I am also fixed on making voice conversations a simple part of this ecology and why I created Phweet as one example. I believe escalating conversations outside your direct or traditional buddylist is important.

The original… piece….

Conversational Blogging (Unbound Spiral) (April 2003)

“The best blogs are written with conversation in mind, writes Steve Bowbrick I’ve noticed that good blogging is a kind of conversation. Not the literal, verbal conversation of a face-to-face encounter, but the give-and-take of an unconditional and open dialogue.“

A follow-up piece from which I’ve pulled a few lines.

From Conversational Blogging to Jazz Communities (Unbound Spiral) (December 2003)

From Conversational Blogging to Jazz Communities
Our Challenge is to link blogs in a way that retains independent thought while creating a jazz community. A blog based info accelerator helps us engage with information, conferences, CoP’s in a different way.

This applies even more now to Twitter….

Blogging is a natural for the “listening post”, the early warning radar, and for scanning upstream. I’ve been able to identify for some time an emergent blogging community that could do this in the KM area

Finally the PR and marketing teams are stepping in and seeing this is true!

A possible solution for enabling an environment in which we can work together is to show “members” or “sponsors” how they can learn faster than traditional companies.

This held true then and is even more true today.

P2P music experiences revealed how communities of customers can learn faster than traditional companies. So as a leader you want to remain ahead of the competition. You know the surprises come from the fringe, and edge of the network. The deep answers seldom come from inside the organization and almost never from where you are today. It’s not what’s on your agenda that will kill you. It’s what’s not!

Yes… and “conversation” and “dialogue is what will lead to success.

We know where we are starting but not where it might lead us. It’s about connecting, It is about flows. It is about curiosity. Ultimately it is about better questions and learning faster. Our tools will be conversations and dialogues. …

A few weeks ago I was at Presence 2.0 along with a few other friends of mine; including Ross Mayfield, Phil Wolff, Kaliya Hamlin. I found myself talking about lifestreaming presence information. Yes I should post my notes here however I’m just pleased to be stepping back in and writing a short blog post.

I spoke to Ross after his session about enabling a simple method to capture my wiki updates in a format that I can feed into twitter or other lifestreaming tools. Wikis are great for a small closed group who see your recent updates. Yet if the wiki is public it would be rather nice to see contributions tied back to my lifestream so I can make the choice of whether or not I broadcast them.

Example: I update Wikipedia. Right now none of my friends would even know, or could learn that I really care enough about that topic to make an addition, correction etc. It’s extra steps for me to even find it. It also doesn’t turn up in any search engines. By contrast, many of today’s blogs when commented on put your comment up on RSS. Later searching technorati or using another blog search tool for your name or left URL… you will often find that contribution mentioned. For me that creates more value. It also means I can find my content sometimes just with a smart search engine. This even when contributions are increasingly fragmented all over the net.

I think we’d make Wikis more popular if it was easier to tie back contributions into a person’s lifestream. I also believe we are entering a world where our blog page is less of a blog page and an assembly of artifacts from around the web. I think it will include our friends content too. As we fragment our inputs a blog no longer has all the context. The freshness of what drove a blog to a post a day or more, to provide meaning is no longer a great rule for a blog.

If I actually had been off writing a book using a wiki during my recent silence; the mere act of sharing recent edit changes with a “edit summary” may have helped. It would have explained my silence only if I had fed the feed updates into my blog stream. For now that is on my to-do list. Making my blog feed richer so I feel it more effectively represents me, what I’m doing and the context thereof.

Luis Suarez is pushing me to follow his example and declare “Eight Things You Didn’t Know About Me”. I responded in Twittter that I would although that involves sharing more than I might normally on my blog. Tagging Bloggers always reminded me of the letters that go around asking you to send 10 more out. Those never worked for me. The difference is here you can reach out to hear something more and at the same time share what you write with a broader audience. Luis tagged eight souls… so I’ve looked up their blogs some of which I know. Jasmin Tragas Thomas van der Wal , David Stephenson, Susan Scrupski , Dennis McDonald, Andy Piper and Jon Husband.

Luis morphed the rules somewhat via Martin Koser and Reasonable Robinson. The rules are straight forward:

1. Link to your tagger and post these rules.

2. List EIGHT random facts about yourself.

3. Tag EIGHT people at the end of your post and list their names.

4. Let them know they’ve been tagged.

So… what won’t you know about me after years of blogging.

1. Moved Around: From the time I was four I’ve moved country to country. I mostly grew up in southern California, with frequent visits back home to the birthplace (UK). Later I found myself at University in Auckland New Zealand. Since then I’ve worked all over Europe with 5 years in Holland, many years downunder, and years in the US. I spent most of last year in India.

2. Happy Anywhere: I like travel and traveling; seldom the same place twice. I’m not worried about conditions and all I really need is a pack, camera and a few dollars. I prefer some reality and authenticity to 5 star; both have their merits. I’ve not done enough skiing in the last 8 years.

3. Adrenaline Junky: I like speed and vertical drops. While I can’t do them everyday the buzz I have had from heli skiing to racing Porsches and jumping off buildings is hard to quench. Currently I’m getting quite a thrill from re acquainting myself with motocycles and itching for something bigger than a Kawasaki 500 Ninja. Target next summer!

4. Periodic Heath Nut: I’ve been vegetarian, tried all sorts of elimination diets and can still buy into the Doctor’s recommendation that a glass of red wine now and then is a good thing. Of wine I’d like a larger collection. On dieting I’d like to forget about it although the metabolism seems to have slowed. On food; well I’ve marketed everything from chicken to beer. I’m coping by working out regularly for the last six months with the Orinda Aquatics Masters program. Lost over 35 lbs. I don’t think I can swim my age yet for the 100yd free although I am starting to think about whether it is possible and a worthwhile goal for the summer. (after not swimming much at all for almost 30 years).

5. Numbers: Mostly people think I’m a marketing guy. However I started out as a CA – accountant. After driving marketing teams crazy I was put in charge of marketing. I’ve never lost my interest in the systems including IT, need for numbers, or how to use them to motivate and achieve big goals. I’m not an accountant today because too many are risk adverse and don’t focus on how to grow business. I remain talented at “back of the envelope” reckoning and once had a boss in pre-calculator days whom would challenge me to who’s quickest to 1/100th of a percent… using just your head and vocal chords.

6. America: The US is not necessarily my resting place. While I’ve spent a little less than 50% of my years on earth here, and have been resident for most of the last 8 in the Bay Area there are many opportunities elsewhere. I returned seeing the bay area as having a “competitive advantage” on creating the future and chose here to send my kids to school and on to college. However, my values are global, and while they may semi gel with northern California, they certainly don’t with Washington. I am not anti-american merely disappointed with the political leadership in this country. In my lifetime Americans (yes it is a sweeping statement ) have failed to get a better more connected grip on the world around them. I am registered as an Independent. I’d like to live in multiple places.

7. How things work: Probably not a surprise…. I’ve been taking the wheels of things since before I could walk. Yesterday I replaced the diaphragm (keyboard and toggle switch) in my daughters Nokia N73. Last weekend I was a plumber. I’ve moved walls and done renovations. Rebuilt motors and computers. To me these things aren’t chores and I’m always tempted to open an auto restoration shop. Something in the labor and result satisfies me. I’m probably a closet engineer and undeclared architect. Then we can’t be everything.

8. My Blog: Has a lot more meaning to me today than the day I started it. For community, for helping my curiosity and for points of inquiry and observation. I may plug my blog into other things I don’t think I will leave it for another blog or another place to write. It’s worth struggling over even though I don’t like writing much, and would far prefer to be in a group development session.

Well that’s me for this round. For me I’d say I doubt there are any surprises above. I share these sorts of thing either willingly or it’s obvious in passing when you visit, or we get together. Still they aren’t things I’d talk about everyday. I’d still like to change the world and that keeps me motivated and optimistic.

So how do you choose who to tag? I’m tagging bloggers I don’t really know. Each has impacted my thinking or actions in some way over the last few months. I apologize in advance if you don’t like being put in this tagged position. Still it is that time of year where we tend to reflect and think about what we might share or what we might want to open up to in the new year.

So you have all been tagged! I think all will get a trackback, or are astute enough to have Google or Technorati notification active. Have fun and thanks for sharing.

1. Anne Zelenka: Anne Truit Zelenka For me a mystery who keeps turning up in more posts and links. Doesn’t just buy the same old view. I’m listening!
2. Tim Liberecht: iPlot Ah Frog Design another pretty neat place gathering neat perspectives on the world and the future. I get to see things on Tim’s blog I wouldn’t find otherwise.
3. Jan Chipchase: Future Perfect Maybe I am just envious, he’s globe trotting the world and researching mobility and communications. He has a flair for presentations and I’d love to work on projects like his. The future – a conversation.
4. Geoff Livingston: TheBuzzBin Geoff’s writing can’t just be pulled out of his company blog (authors please!) and yet there is a stream of interest in social media and PR emanating from this PR hive. There are many PR bloggers still new to me I’m watching, for most – blogging is new to them and they are naturally good at it.
5. TDavid: MakesYouGoHmm.com TD doesn’t need to blog (lots of other interests) other than he is compelled to. I met him once in Seattle; he has a passion for well.. hmmm.
6. Jon Udell: Jon Udell I’ve read John off and on from the beginning of my blogging experience. I still remember library lookup. Yet I still know very little about him.
7. Jeff Jarvis: Buzzmachine I used to read Buzzmachine very infrequently, I’m not really an A-List reading blog kind of guy. On Journalism today Jeff’s is the blog I turn to. All forms of communication are undergoing disruptive change. Yet we do need a “media” like we need artists, musicians, directors etc. I think the opportunities are yet to be narrated.
8. Toby Bloomberg: DivaMarketingBlog Simply writes a good story everytime. It goes way beyond the soft graphics of pink lipstick, martini and mirror. Character aplenty.

I just read about the Blog Council via Jeff Jarvis. Bit late to chime in too and say this is a yesterday’s idea (Alec said that and I read more here, here, and here with great comments.) I conclude organizations must empower customers to craft how the relationship will evolve. See the BBC. 

The Blog Council mimics Industry Advertising Councils that have over the years in different countries helped to frame appropriate advertising. Those organizations served a useful purpose in their time. In a way Andy Sernovitz should be congratulated he lined up this list of companies.

However, the quote below from Sean Driscoll at Microsoft makes me question what they are thinking. IN A PRIVATE NETWORKING ENVIRONMENT etc…. (on home page). I can only say “get real”. Start a wiki, provide content. Share from the beginning. Enable a conversation. Use your own blog to explore the topic. Blog with your peers!  Most of what you need is already out there. On the BC mission page “The key executives responsible for their companies’ official blog presence”….. Is that controlling? Or what? Rules?

I am even more horrified by the impact statement. It says nothing about LISTENING!. Nothing which talks about “growing the conversation” which translates to growing information, knowledge and learning around interests, tags, topics… that we read and view.

When I started this post I just meant to write about Jeff’s comment to a woman to see beyond the blog. My experience in companies is — that is often very hard. To blog one must be loose, not anxious or feeling controlled. If you have to ask…how or what to blog then you shouldn’t be blogging in the first place. No wonder they formed the Blog Council.

Blog Council

Sean O’Driscoll, General Manager, Community Support Services for Microsoft. “The Blog Council brings together precisely the people who need to explore these issues together, in a productive and private networking environment. We can work together to develop model policies that set the standard for corporate blogging excellence.”

BuzzMachine » Blog Archive » It’s not the blog

the woman next to me was troubled, bearing weight on her shoulders from having to fill her blog and manage her blog. To her, the blog was a thing, a beast that needed to be fed, a never-ending sheet of blank paper. I turned to her and said she should see past the blog. It’s not a show with a rundown that, without feeding, turns into dead air. ………. I blog when I find something interesting that I’ve seen and I think, ‘I have to tell my friends about that.’ You’re the friends. So yes, I said, it’s just a conversation. And reading — hearing what others are saying — is every bit as important as writing.

Blog Council: FAQ

9. Who manages the Blog Council? The Blog Council is managed by GasPedal, which is run by Andy Sernovitz, founder of the Word of Mouth Marketing Association. It is not a non-profit organization or a trade association. It is similar to business councils run by Forrester, Gartner, and the Conference Board.

Standing up and doing a “Rageboy” rant would be so Febuary 2000:

all noise – all the time

However, since the arrival of the tangled higher-order logic of the Web, business has become more dependent on narrative than explication — and the narrative is no longer straightforward and predictable. It takes odd turns. It turns you on, then turns on you

What amazes me is not one representative from a large company felt the hairs on the back of their neck…. when asked to get involved. To me this is a very first principles understanding. One, does this action bring me and my organization more quickly in touch with our customers and enable a conversation? Two, can I afford this time not in front of the customers but talking about how we handle them? Three is this action chaordic?

Then get someone to help you “reading” or “listening” to the blogosphere. They better bring a toolkit for listening too.

All this does bother me. It seems large companies are still learning  so little and so slowly. They are worrying about the wrong things or how to behave when companies like the BBC are launching new Beta sites that are more adaptive, more intuitive and in the end will be easier to learn than the structured linear flows of information the council I think has their head round. It’s a great example on enabling the user / customer to craft their own relationship. The more “we” graft ourselves onto your portal, your site, your content or share, insert, connect, you to our lifestreams, the less you have to say, write and do. So make your content available! Listen and watch. I bet conversation rather than blogging will describe what happens.

I buried myself in a project for the last almost three weeks. I let my blog slide in that period. I’m not very happy about it. I was just getting back into the swing of things. It wasn’t only my blog, I also let my exercise program (five days a week target swimming masters) go. This week I’ve made it back to the pool four times so far.  Writing this is just a way of forcing me to pay that daily attention to my blog and get back into posting regularly. For me it has to be a daily contribution during the week to feel good about it. Maybe the blog rules my life in that way. For me I know that is the way I get the most out of it. Writing it and reading what others write. In the off period I’ve been reading although I let my link blogging slip too. Well, that’s my declaration. Now I just have to use the affirmation to go back to what I was doing.

Twitter puts many things straight in front of you that you have already been thinking about. Marjolein Hoekstra of CleverClogs fame provided the alert to look at TweetChannel today. I got the invite this afternoon logged in and created a couple of channels. (One isn’t working Brand2.0 – probably the period in the code).

I set up a channel for #socialmedia so start your tweet with #socialmedia and it will be added to that channels content. There’s no ownership once the channels set up. Like all tagging what goes in could mean different things to different people. So we’ll see what the value really is. Currently there is no RSS feed for the channel. So I added a “track” #socialmedia to my Twitter. I’ll see it that works. In the future it could be easy to create or select who broadcasts in the channel (ie your own personalization) different slices build by just sorting on various contributors names.

I liked the #quotes channel idea. I’m sure there will be others. I’ve been thinking for awhile about various alternative for capturing and using Twitter content. TweetChannel just demonstrates another simple twist on how it might be used. Another illustration of how something simple is creating or leading to increasingly complex behavior. If you aren’t playing with Twitter, it would be my number 2 or 3 behind social bookmarking for understanding where social media is going. Facebook being the other.

I’m an incredibly lucky guy. My life changed because I blog and when I work to engage in conversation. After 5.17+ years of blogging it should be easy to write this post. Then writing has never come easy for me. Still, when my blog buddies Jim McGee (6) and then Ross Mayfield (5) and now Ton Zijlstra (5) remembered they had a blog birthday I thought.. wow time really flies. We could grow old blogging. Actually, I believe blogging is more likely to keep you younger, more curious, more willing to learn.

Blogging has seen more than 2000 posts over five years from me, and helped me:

Build a personal network of remarkable people for me. Whether blogrolls, or what’s in my newsaggregator, more recently in Facebook or on Twitter; the collection of people that have my attention have never been more interesting or more global.

Continued to frame how I look upstream for research, for innovation, insight. The trickle of information has become a flood. My RSS tracking has moved more to terms, searches, bookmarking sites etc. I remain interested in thoughtful input from the edge. I try to find new sources.

Learn more about my readers. More recent tools are just now starting to enable me to see and understand who they are. Examples mybloglog, twitter. I want still more of this and I’m working to make what I view, who I visit etc more visible. (It probably is to Google, it may be much more useful for my friends in some aggregate form). It’s also one of the reasons I was so keen on Skype to begin. I could finally afford to talk.

Continue pushing product development boundaries for the Enterprise, for KM, for marketing & sales. My blog has been my testing ground. My templates were always done by me, widgets trialled etc. It’s getting easier and easier, and the upgrades and power one has now are more than ever.

Taught me that my best blogs are often top of mind. Don’t do the fact checking, just write and then fill in a few links. You cannot predict sometimes what’s hot. You can write to get noticed; in the end originality pays off.

My Journey (year by year approximate):

5+ years ago (2002): Nobody introduced me to blogging. I ended up with a blog because I wanted to create a dynamic website without the work I’d done in 97-2000. Radio Userland buttons on sites got me blogging. Thanks Dave Winer! I started a Radio blog. I abandoned it when I wanted something that would do more to my designs. Key was the newsaggregator. I continued to use Radio just for that for awhile. I saw it as a powerful new platform and wanted to become proficient (expert enough), and push the boundaries of the technology. I saw opportunities for KM, Organizations and Marketing.

5 years ago (2002): Called my Blog Unbound Spiral. (ideas accelerating or spiraling. and a conversation place or inquiry). I was on MT – movabletype… inspired by the wonderful original developer community that was there. (They lost that community unfortunately). Wrote about things that interested me. In many cases my blogging here still remains a mix. Back then I was interested in identity, innovation, communications, collaborative spaces, social behaviors etc. At the core I’m a strategist and marketer keenly focused on the future and new products.

4 Years ago (2003): I continued my blogging, enjoying the Conversational Blogging and its transformation to a Jazz Community, even as early as in 2003 exploring ways to put Execs on Blogging Steriods, examining Identity Circles and its implications for our digital identity.

In 2003, I also discovered Skype within a few days of their initial launch. I decided it would change the world. I felt strongly, it fit early warning indicators I’d seen for years in Scenario planning workshops I’d run. I felt “free” and “more intimate” conversations would change the world. I focused almost all my blogging on spreading the word, pushing them to new features etc. I became the “Skype evangelist”. I put skype on blogs, I got SkypeMe buttons done, argued for Voice Messaging, and they ran my “billions n billions” of minutes served for a long time.

3 Years ago(2004): I kept blogging on and off about Skype. I was also heavily into early social networks, I went through the cycle of feeling Social Networking is Broken in the form they existed, and started sharing thoughts on a Social Networking Manifesto. I was also exploring the Online Presence Spiral and Mobility. Like Skype Plug-ins, I tried them all. I developed a guide for SkypeCasting. I left behind plenty of suggestions. Some outspoken. I also began looking for more community blogging opportunities. Still I was learning the more focused you are the easier it is to influence the future. I found myself at conferences meeting face to face with people I’d connected with and read from around the world. With many of these we still today keep trying out the next new thing.

2 Years ago (2005): Actually Jan 2005 I launched SkypeJournal. Inspired by Doc Searls and Linux Journal and long before InsideFacebook or similar. We hit some big numbers for a blog. I wanted to build an independent community for Skype Developers. We reached the world with a “What’s your Skype strategy?” And I was no longer the only one writing on it or contributing to Skype Journal. It kept growing rapidly, and I found consulting came from competitors while we tried to help build a developer community. Then Skype’s sale in Oct. 2005 to eBay broke my interest and evangelistic fervor. I began looking for other pastures. My blogging on Skype Journal became a trickle. During the year I’d often posted 3 times a day. It was a go to place in a category VoIP which blogpulse showed was driven by Skype. In those days Skype Journal was right after Skype. I took the complaint calls too. (Note today SkypeJournal lives on still written by Phil Wolff and more recently by Jim Courtney.)

1 year ago (2006): I found myself on an adventure in India with a zillion hours a day startup. I though I was going with a blog agenda too. Deeply passionate about the product and opportunity I never got the opportunity to really build the community for it. The communications was well ahead of the product. Unfortunately the bugs got in the way of giving it to users. I learnt a lot about agile practices. I should have been blogging them.

Today and the last few months: Always encouraged, embraced, inspired by, driven and humbled by the trust and warm friendship of many of my early blog buddies, and many new people I find myself interacting with thru my blog, it is something I’m really relishing again. While I’d hoped to be doing a VP Brand2.0 job 18 months ago (I’d been doing bootcamps prior to that with Dina) it was fairly natural to fall back towards Brand2.0 evangelism. Unlike five years ago when I discovered blogging (companies were fearful) today they are overwhelmed by the content and increasingly exposed. Today it all starts with listening; listening to what customers say, write, do, etc. It always was. It’s just today it is explicit, travels at warp speed and isn’t something you are ever going to control.

Coming to grips with this new world is a process not a prescription. It is not achieved in a day and must be designed by the organization.

More Observations and Daily Toolkit:

I live with social media. I learn faster than you; well maybe not you if you are reading this. I hang with a group / loose network.. that learns very fast. I tend to track across a few categories. VoIP, Innovation, KM, Social Software (blogging, wikis, community), Marketing, PR, Behavior (user, etc) Strategy. I watch more small companies than I do large one. I test out stuff. At this point I am incredibly quick to see the flaws and the opportunities in what many are doing. Then I’ve done more learning than most; just by doing over years.

I just renamed my blog to “Stuart Henshall’s blog”. I’ve made sure I am both visible and fairly easy to find on the net. stuarthenshall or stuart_henshall will usually find me. I still love the idea around Unbound Spiral, however, I’m not just about ideas. I like to put winning strategies into practice. Beer wars, and coffee share wars taught me how to beat the competition. And five years of blogging has changed me too. I came into it… very much believing Kevin Kelly’s rule.. information wants to be free and the more you give…then sooner or later it will come back. I’ve given away hours and hours of my time particularly to small startups. I can look to sites, point to features and say.. that came after this blog post or a conversation with them. On that score.. it will come back it’s not clear. It certainly came back as intangibles. It hasn’t helped my wallet very much. So my learning is to be smarter and yet still push for what’s next.

Blogging, my sense of community and network has opened the opportunity for a new business model. I’m pleased that blogging has resulted in doing business together with with many of my best blogging buddies and readers. I’m convinced that the “core” of these networks no longer needs to be a buffer or barrier to rapid deployment of smart nets. I’ve talked to many others. I know that together we field better teams than the most expensive consultants. It’s cools to know you have that type of backup going into anything.

What needs to change.

I need to go to more companies with how I, Mosoci and our remarkable network can help them.

I must go back with Dina and focus Mosoci and it’s site so it is less a beta blog platform and a quicker, sharper, this is what we do. And we do a lot! And we need to expand the Mosoci circle of friends, colleagues and partners.

I still love the quote. “a small number of people can change the world”. I have the philosophy that take the square root of the number of people in your organization (that want / are interested in social media) and you can change the organization. I sense that we are closing in on the point where the blogosphere represents the square root of everyone on earth. That means we have, and will change the world.

After five years I think blogging (think outlets for self-expression, communication etc. so include all forms) makes the world a better place. The flow of communications has never been more efficient many to many. Are attention never more precious.

If you’ve read this far I appreciate it. Please leave me a comment. Challenge me in ways that I can think about going forward.

MyBlogLog. Many moons ago I first saw this widget on a few other sites. I wasn’t sure I wanted to leave my face and my name (I now use my name almost everywhere transparently) on their sites. I also wasn’t sure if I’d end up mistakenly on a site that I wouldn’t want my name left on publicly. So I was rather wary.

Still months go by and I start seeing more blogs with this widget in the side bar. So it’s time to learn how it feels and what I learn.

I upload the widget. I don’t like the header so i make it white and then label the widget recent comments. I try to make the bottom border less visible. Yes there is more code below I just don’t edit it. So my initial widget looked similar to the one on the left.

I visited a few more sites. I saw widgets without the names. I made a mental note that it was more powerful. It reminds me of the Twitter type of faceroll. Facerolls are not new they were part of early blogroll advances too. Facerolls were different, they were static, they weren’t a who was here last.

I like this new format (right) much better. I still see no reason for the link at the bottom, I may just make it white. I personally think this should be the default.

MyBlogLog enables me:

• To connect quickly with reader who visit my blog. The every changing facemap intrigues me. I’ve never known really who reads, why they read etc. It’s going to give me a better idea.
• Learn more about my readers. Just taking me to their blog is cool.
• Share with others. I now think it is a nice gesture to say I was here! I can do it without leaving a comment or more.

Mybloglog gives me away….

• Example when Dina sends me a link (or vice versa) we are often 1 – 2 on the mybloglog we are visiting.

MyBlogLog is taking my money

• Yes I signed up for the statistics and paid service. Thought I’d test that too.

I have some other ideas of how to use it and why it is important. I’m still on a go slow with them. MyBlogLog wants all sorts of other info from me. So far they have my blog, my picture and that’s about it. I’m not yet ready to give them more.

There’s some potential here. I also like the personality and color it simply brings to my page. It’s one step more to recognizing this as a community. Upsizing it makes that visibly more obvious.

I’ll also add the wordpress plug-in shortly to provide photo’s for commenters.

Overall, MyBlogLog is adding to the conversation. It’s enabling me to bring my blog slowly and surely closer to the sorts of things I see in Facebook. I think that’s cool. I’d like to know what other users think.

There is new meaning in Dell Hell. Now its a note: Hi Tom, See this blog post…. Love Michael.

Jeff Jarvis reports on the end of Dell Hell (video) and how they have come full circle. The para below is the most interesting to me.

Dell Learns to Listen

“These
conversations are going to occur whether you like it or not, O.K.? Well, do you want to be part of that or not? My argument is you
absolutely do. You can learn from that. You can improve your reaction time. And you can be a better company by listening and being involved in that conversation.”

Interpretation… If you want a conversation to really take hold in a company you have to teach the CEO how to listen. Today it’s never been easier to innovate in this area. From my perspective every VP Marketing should be enabling a social media listening program. So even if Dell now has a team listening for him (which should happen over time) the first action is forwarding content and questions. The new Dell Hell.

The second benefit when the CEO starts listening is in strategy. For as the learnings become more visible and more transparent (in these typical command and control orgs — trickle down and the systems adapt to push them back up… ) more strategic leadership opportunities to filter and look to the edge emerge. The organization that asks better questions faster wins.

It took some time to listen (two years); take their licks and lessons. “conversations” is a nacent capability at Dell today. Separately, I’d like to know which companies you know that you would hold up as having the “edge” in conversational listening? I bet they are good investment options too.

BuzzMachine » Blog Archive » Dell Hell: The end?

Something else that didn’t make the story — because it’s of more interest to us bloggers than to a Business Week audience, I decided — was the question of Michael Dell’s relationship with blogs. Does he read them? Every one of his executives insist that he not only reads them but that he will send them links to posts at all hours of the day and night. Their insistence was so consistent that I wondered whether this wasn’t on the Jarvis interview briefing sheet I saw on one employee’s Dell screen.

It is not about MEDIA! I saw a few posts on SMNR or SMPR? recently, and I put them aside. Now I see praise about Ford’s latest social media blogger release which certainly looks slick and does little for me. I will explain below. Quite separately, I also found myself chatting to Andy Abramson after using his work as an example. We didn’t talk about Ford although we discussed blogger relations. He got me thinking on a few definitions and I’ve tried to draw some distinctions between blogger PR, blogger outreach, and blogger relations below.

We start with the premise that social media has radically changed communication needs and strategies. Thus PR firms require new strategies, Brand and Marketing leaders need new ways to operate and the metrics for success are changing. Few companies are well placed, trained or understand even the first step in building a strategy. I’m also completely certain it is not taking a traditional PR release and mocking it up into something bloggers can consume.

So…I’ll let it rip.!!! Social Media PR (SMPR) is not a plan for getting bloggers on board. The Ford example illustrates this perfectly. SMPR should not be a program that issues jazzed up PR releases for bloggers. It’s much more difficult. The problem or opportunity I see is in Blogger Relations.

Andy described his role in Blogger Relations as; “creating relationship between sender and receiver”. I think this is a critical distinction and it is not what traditional PR does or even aims to do. In fact, it much closer to direct mail.

Let’s come back to the Ford release. I enjoyed reading Tim Leberecht on Ford’s Social Media News Release who notes that:

PR practitioners face the daunting challenge of doing effective public relations when it’s more and more the public itself that does all of the relating for you.

Tim Points to the SMPR. According to him companies are using this (see Ford’s). That’s cool but it misses the point and he clarifies part of the direction required.

It is definitely a step in the right direction even though the release is not yet fully social media-enabled: it lacks broader social bookmarking capabilities, and it also does not allow the recipients to comment on the release itself and pick up the conversation right there.

This perfectly illustrates why Andy was making his point to me about Blogger Relations. It’s not about media; at least not in the traditional sense. The SMNR is very much a 1.0 approach to PR for a more connected world. The production values are high, it probably costs a fortune…. however, who in Ford or the PR firm has actually nurtured relationships with bloggers?

This Ford release misses out on comments and conversational elements. There is no attempt to aggregate content back to the site. This is not new. Ford has been taken to task before for their Blogging effort. When I look at the contact info I just see three names; two at Ford and one at the Social Media Group. (I’m not trying to taking them to task here in any offensive way. It’s a step forward) What it is not is a platform for conversation. It doesn’t link to blogs to bookmarking sites etc… There is nothing in this page to suggest any one at Ford wants a conversation with me, will make an appointment with me, have a road show… etc. Nothing..

Maggie Fox of SMG writes below on the value of setting Ford’s content free. She also comments on the limitation re comments and trackbacks. Indeed some will automatically go to del.icio.us, flickr or youtube. And as they do.. why aren’t they aggregated back to the home SMPR page? It’s just another tab…

… they immediately understood the value of setting their content free. Ford realized that the more bloggers and others could get their hands on quality images, video and text, the more they would talk about the product. Pretty much the primary purpose of a press release, isn’t it?

And that brings us back to blogger relations. SMPR is not blogger relations; its aim in its current guise not building relationships between sender and receiver. It’s not empowering me as a blogger. It provides a resource. However when I google 2008 Ford Focus (Ford’s tag) it doesn’t show up. It is probably too much to expect although it is a critical point. For googling like this is what “customers” do. So as a Ford Marketing Manager I’d be wondering how to make my tags sticky. (I’d also say there are too many tags… your problem is.. let the blogger invent them.. then point to them. This should be dynamic content).

However there are plenty of other conversations on google where I’ve likely to get my information first if I’m shopping for this car. Unless the SMPR morphs into a node for conversation it’s more PR fluff than hard documentation at my fingertips. More importantly… it won’t have much to do with the stories you are I are looking for online if we are considering buying. When you talk to bloggers you must consider how “we” research.

I actually care about cars; some say I’m a car nut. In this release I’ve not been given the reasons why the 2008 Focus goes on my list of “you ought to look at x, y and z” the next time someone asks me what to recommend. I have no way to even judge this through the eyes of others. I have no way to connect with those that have bragging rights. You’d be surprised how many inquiries I’ve fielded for Nokia re purchases (and yes I was on the Nokia Blogger Program).

Blogger Outreach vs Blogger Relations vs Blogger PR.

• Blogger PR: Providing Traditional PR Kits jazzed up in a format that blogger may or maynot see. (How do you know who to send them too)
• Blogger Outreach: I do not mean sending emails / pitches to bloggers. (Example). Identifying bloggers that may become part of your conversation. Start by listening, reading their blogs. It requires some personal attention. Opening your site and providing access to extend the conversation. (set some rules if you want!) Ogilvy has a code of ethics on this. Still the cart comes before the horse. From a marketing perspective set your communications up to converse / enable conversations before the glossies go out.
• Blogger Relations: Creating a transparent responsive channel for communication that enable access (think global access at all hours! not always real-time) when asked for and not just facts. Some of the most difficult conversationalists often become your friends. As a PR firm or Social Media firm long term you will be many times more successful if the client is blogging (listening first!). It’s the best demonstration there is that the company is open to learning, change, input, and a conversation. (Example)

A good blogger relations program enables stories. What many miss around the Nokia story is the community that the blogger relations program established. If you can connect individual then the “chatter” increases. The Nokia program made it easy to find other bloggers; and build on their stories. It reduced the pressure to be first to post; some would even say later.. see what x, y and z have to say. The important aspect was linking and comparing stories. Now I know that not everyone can get a free Focus (there are other ways to create the same buzz) If you need a reminder on the Nokia Blogger Program read Jeremy Pepper.

I come at this all as a marketer, having spent many years inside the company leading marketing team; client to the PR, Ad Agency, Promo house etc. If I was already blogging and my PR firm came to me with the SMPR approach I’d probably consider firing them. Then I’d listen. I know the innovators around this approach want to go much further. Privately, they would probably say the client sucks. My answer to that is… it’s a communications problem. Too many PR firms are running ahead without teaching the client “how to listen”!

Via PR Squared this quote that requires teh “brains” and let me add the facilitation skills to maintain the conversation.

“(Viability will not come from PR firms’) ability to pitch media (traditional, blogger, vlogger or otherwise), anyone can do that internally and on the cheap. (Viability will come from the) ability to actually help create the tent to hold the community, the content to sustain the community and the brains to maintain the conversation.”

So my challenge to Ford, and the PR firms in general is to become more transparent to what you are listening to. The community will help you to further refine it. If you aren’t listening to a vocal constituency then I am fairly sure they will find you in time and you they can join the conversation. I’m sure the “listening service” should be much broader than just current tags (eg Ford.) for at the end of the day the client is interested in influencing and growing the category. That leadership comes from sharing customer stories. It has nothing to do with the glossies.

I started with the idea that we are blogging less and yet believe we should be blogging more and Blogging to Listen. I’ve not got a statistical sample and yet I have a suspicion that many of the people I’ve watched and linked to since I started blogging in 2002 are blogging less.

• Have I just lost sight of your feed and where you are… New URL etc?
• Does it conflict with new business interests?
• Has your company put in a policy that affects your blogging?
• Is it because the “marketing” effort didn’t pay out?
• Are too many tools and updates requesting attention…the fragmented self?
• Are you hiding on Del.icio.us?
• You are no longer on Doc’s blogroll (hat tip to Hugh re Scoble)
• Was it simpler… just wanted to put the time into other things?
• You simply got it out of your system and are now anti-blogging?

At this point I Googled “Why people blog less?” and got some usual suspects. I liked Hugh’s take (Scoble quit Microsoft) and visual. I don’t know if Steve Rubel thinks it is still Twitter and the Attention Laws? He may have changed his view as Twitter appears to be increasing readership.

By contrast I’m blogging even more today. I wrote a post now many moons ago “Giving Up Traditional Blogging” I lamented then that I wanted more community / collective intelligence in a platform that would be more open and encourage participation. I’m not there yet although I’ve not given up on this broader idea.

link » (I’ve cut down the verbage…. )

• I took to blogging when I could see that participation in blogs and newsreaders would simply accelerate my learning.
• Newreaders: As my Newsreading list expanded I began managing it in new ways. Feedster became a savior, tracking “topics” (now Google blog search)
• Link blog — was too time consuming. Many pages I would have liked to note and save weren’t blog ready and frankly putting them in my favorites file was like sticking them in a draw. (today del.icio.us)
• “social bookmarking” – Furl, del.icio.us, Stumbleupon, In these solutions I have yet another way to filter and see what others are looking at. Wonderful for say sharing competitive intelligence. (tagging and more now it works…)
• The social connections and the word (tag) connections in the data are simply becoming more important to me. (topic searchs are more important)
• Blogs aren’t adapting to this new reality. Blogs remain static in structure, they haven’t evolved much. (I’m visiting new blogs more than ever; how they look tells me a lot)

The empowerment we are finding in Facebook will find its way to our personal blogs and personal spaces. It’s easier than ever to add bookmarking, presence updates and more back in to our blogs. So why aren’t we doing more of it?

So while I don’t yet have Facebook controls on my blog; I can see them coming. It’s easy for me to create the newsfeed of notes and place it in the sidebar. I can similarly bring in all my friends tweets.. etc. RSS provides me with simple ways to do this. Where it falls down…is getting information on new apps or widgets, or changes in groups. Perhaps Google will release this as part of their API. Then I could create the lifestream I want of my friends information… and not what they push at me.

Discreet Controls Required.

• Subscriptions: I need to generate or make clear to my subscribers what level of subscription. Eg all my blogs, my tweets, delicious, dopplr, or certain elements. How do they choose what to pull in or ignore? We lack any fine grained control here.
• Push: I also don’t have any control over who can see what’s going out. I can’t encrypt personal messages for family vs friends vs work etc. Why can’t I? Shouldn’t your reader just report on data that you have a key for?

I’m thinking blogs are coming full circle because what they put out — RSS — is becoming easier than ever to bring back in. With unique names on bookmarking I could even subscribe to feeds tracking my name. Be no worse than approving comments.

In an early post I wrote about Building Community News It was about RSS. I had a sense that RSS would really enable us to share more. Today the explosion of feeds means that for many Blogging is no longer about blogging as in talking out.. it is about listening and taking in the chatter.

However, I wish blogs were available when I was SVP Marketing and Sales. Realtime cross-functional cross-regional sharing would go up n’fold.

Blogs are growing in importance for those that listen. Even if you plan on lurking capturing that stream of listening is becoming a valuable knowledge resource. Today, I believe that listening is the place to start with blogging.

I have some friends and colleagues who are all headed to KM World in San Jose. The theme is KM 2.0: A New World for the Enterprise. So I was a little surprised to find this media advisory on the front page (my suggestions for revision below). This is so completely old school (they are not alone in this). If I was a Podcasters I wouldn’t feel welcome. I’d love to find myself blogging some of the speakers. Examples: Jon Husband, David Gurteen, James Surowiecki, David Snowden, Hubert Saint-Onge, Dave Pollard, Richard McDermott, Verna Allee.

KMWorld & Intranets 2007 – KM 2.0: A New World for the Enterprise

MEDIA ADVISORY: Information Today, Inc. welcomes press and blog coverage of our conferences. The content of individual talks, presentation graphics, and handouts belongs to the speakers and/or conference organizers and may not be duplicated or distributed in whole or in substantial part, by print, electronic, or any other means, without the express written consent of Information Today, Inc. Written permission is required to publish, broadcast, or otherwise distribute transcripts or audio/video recordings of any talk or session by any means, including “podcasting.” Brief excerpts and quotes are permitted in the context of a critical review or broadcast segment. Please link to official transcripts, handouts, or other media objects hosted at the speakers’ or Information Today, Inc.’s Web sites.

What I’d like to see…

Information Today, Inc welcomes press (linked to press) and blog (linked to bloggers) coverage of KM World. Content shared at KM World is “Creative Commons Licensed X” (use logo) unless otherwise stated. We encourage all participants to share information and their learnings. Please tag content uploads with the relevant tags; KMWorld2007, Speaker, topic or session tags as provided. We reserve the right to aggregate and re-present all information tagged with KMWorld2007. Promoting knowledge management is our goal. Thank you for helping us share.

It would certainly help to see KMWorld reaching out to bloggers. There should be a clear blogging program, which would help expose attendees to the emerging KM 2.0 world. Which starts with listening.

Note: Googling speakers for links I found that all of them had KM World advertising against them. Each ad would have more impact if it had said… See David Gurteen etc at KM world rather than the generic copy. Takes a little longer to input; bet the results and resulting statistics would be better.