The Normalization of Blogging

Robert and I were the wrap-up speakers yesterday at the New Communications Forum.  We did pretty well, but one point I tried to make had not fully formed in my head and I didn't articulate it as well as I would have liked. I've had a day to think about it.

A year ago, when we started writing Naked Conversations, there existed a significant chasm on social media issues between the developer-driven blogging community and the top-down structure of the enterprise. As recently as six months ago, our blog enthusiasm was greeted by traditional marketeers with "horror and hostility."

Yesterday, we were not. The image of the conference with two attendee camps--KoolAid drinkers and abstainers had dramatically eroded in a space of less than six months. Of course, we heard some of the bellwether questions: "Isn't it just a fad," "where's the ROI" and "how do I get/prevent my CEO to/from blogging?"

But those dwelling on the question were lessened in ranks, and a chat with a couple already agreed with the answers and were really looking for words to use to persuade others in their organizations. My sense is that the big picture premises of the blogging community are already understood and accepted by a large number of traditional marketers.

There is general understanding that blogging is fundamentally changing how companies communicate and that dialog beats monologue and because it does, disruption to systems in place cannot be held back for very long.

Last October, when I told a BlogOn audience that blogging had reached its tipping point, I saw corporate marketers in the audience roll their eyes and drop their jaws at my arrogance and ignorance. I used the same line yesterday and people gazed back at me with a look of, "Yeah. So?"

At the end of our talk,  I chatted with Hitachi's Jeremy Owyang, whom I enjoy and respect increasingly each time I see him.  While he had enjoyed himself and his own presentation was apparently well-received, he sounded mildly disappointed. He said that he was personally done struggling with the "why-to" blog at Hitachi Data Systems and was now more concerned with the "how-to" blog.  He was more concerned with how to inject blogging into corporate structure and learning finer points to make him a better blogger. I think there were a sizable portion of the audience who were at similar points.

My takeaway is that blogging has already been injected into a great number of corporate cultures, even as the "why-to" question travels to outer circles further on the inevitable marketing graphic. Next week, I'm being interviewed by a pharmaceutical magazine. A year ago, I wold have been disdained as addressing an irrelevant topic.

So my takeaway from New Communications Forum is a big one. Blogging is normalizing.  It is following the usual adoption trends taught in Marketing 101. The number of marketing people watching blogs, starting them and evangelizing is going to inevitably eclipse the number of technology developers who got this all going. This is as it should be and marketers and other people in large organizations will adapt blogging from what it is today into something different. I can only hope that the ethics set based on authenticity and transparency that they started will be maintained as blogging moves into the mainstream rapids. As it shoots down those rapids, I hope it fares better than websites and email did in maintaining a certain structural integrity.

Blogging started as one of Seth Godin's Purple Cows. I would still like to write about unique or valuable blogs--blogs that will help others find their way into the blogosphere. I hear about dozens of new blogs every week, but few, if any meet that criteria. I see blogs that are high quality, blogs that are good for the businesses and business topics they are designed to address but very few that are of Purple Cow uniqueness.

In fact, this is a good thing, if you are a blogging evangelist.  The blog is starting to become part of the business normal, just as email and the Internet did.  Both of these early disruptive innovations are now boring because they are so much of the usual business routine. It was not all that long ago that having a website, or allowing employees to email on company time were highly controversial  with legal departments fretting the repercussions just as they do today over blogging.

The blog, it seems to me, is becoming just another brown cow. This again, is a good thing.  First comes the excitement, then comes the prolongs inevitable change. This is what is supposed to happen. New things need to normalize if they are to endure if they are to really and truly change corporate communications as our book argues it will.

A year ago, we searched the world for business bloggers who were doing something that could show other people in other companies, perhaps in other countries, something valuable.  Sometimes, we had to really work to uncover them, using our two Rolodexes to dig them out. Now, we receive on the average, one request a day from a new blogger for coverage. We will report on them when we see them, but mostly we are seeing some very nice brown cows that should do the business they relate to well. But they are not breaking new ground in the way EnglishCut did for a Saville Row tailor who not has a significant global reach.

How does all this bode for our book and this blog? Well, for the book, I think Robert and I have hit the shelf at the right time. I think we have a hit on our hands and that may t joy in our hearts, not to mention money in our bank accounts. 

But our intended audience for this blog is actually different than for our book. A great many of you know what the book is designed to tell you. We consider you our book collaborators. First, you were a source of content and insight, then you actually helped us write it and now you are spreading the word to people who know less than you about blogging and its business benefits. You have done an astounding job of it and we thank you for it. Big time.

But it's time to expand the focus of this blog. While I'll continue to cover the topic of business and blogging, this blog has already begun to expand our interests into Web 2.0 companies which are shooting up with amazing rapidity and strength dramatically extending and accelerating the continuum of innovation spurred by blogging.

Web 2.0 is topically a natural extension of blogging.  These companies are forming a "people's web" where the blog allows an efficient conduit for two-way communications.  What's important here is not the conduit per se, but that it allows the customer to take his or her rightful place at the center of the corporation.  As Charlene Li said in her conference keynote, the new technology puts the power at people's fingertips, instead of into the hands of the corporation.

I got into blogging because of its disruptive promise.  Web 2.0 is a natural path that follows the lines of disruption and I'm going to follow down those line.

Comments

[Jeremiah Owyang]

Great observations all around Shel. You nailed it and are perceptive to the audience needs.

I want to thank you for taking the time to listening to me after your keynote, you approached me and with open arms embraced my feedback.

You and Robert ( and all the other influentials ) have done a great job showing the world "WHY" blogging is important and is not a fad.

We need you guys to lead us to show us "HOW" to business blog.

The focus is shifted, we need you guys more than ever. Yup, I too also enjoy and respect seeing you guys both more and more each time.

[Ivan Chew]

I agree to some extent that "blogging is normalising". I'd say Blogs as a Communications Tool has just about gone beyond the "what is it" stage and into the "how do I leverage on it" stage. During my recent training stint to library & information professionals in South Africa, my co-trainer and I learnt that we didn't have to cover the basics of "what is a weblog" as much as "How do I actually blog". Participants were also looking at blogs for Corporate Communications and internal communications. But why "blogs are normalising" what isn't so apparent yet is the adoption of a "blogging culture" within organisations and institutions.

[Ivan Chew]

Sorry, I meant "But WHILE "blogs are normalising"..."

[Jozef Imrich]

CODA: Michael Schaefer compiled a nifty compodium on http://deepblog.com/whyiblog.0.html
Why We Blog

[Steve Newson]

"He said that he was personally done struggling with the "why-to" blog at Hitachi Data Systems and was now more concerned with the "how-to" blog. "

Isn't this the cue for Naked Conversations 2?

[John Wagner]

Shel:

I don't think your experience at the New Communications Forum is representative of the business community as a whole.

In many industries, there is still a real lack of awareness and understanding about social media, both from a strategic and tactical perspective.

And the fact that some areas of the country are heavily weighted in certain industries makes this a regional issue, too. For example, the B2B nature of Houston's business community, with a heavy focus on energy, means that the business applications of blogging and podcasting are still relatively unknown.

I'm not saying we won't get there, because I believe we will. But it will take awhile to reach the level of acceptance that the tech community enjoys today.

[Jory Des Jardins]

Shel,

Thanks for your contributions during our Day One session. Your closing statement/hammer anthology hit the nail on the head (pun intended, but also accurate). Also, I loved having the chance to hang out with you and the crew for dinner. I missed Day Two--family emergency--but wish to God I'd seen your keynote.

[James Omdahl]

Great post Shel - your book certainly came at the right time for my organization and me. I was right in the middle of getting our company to adopt blogging as a communications channel to our affiliates and customers - after reading the book my management team is ready to get much more personal in our blogging efforts - exciting stuff.

While I agree that blogs are becoming a norm in a few industries, I think there are still many opportunities for blogging in the markets where blogging is still relatively unknown (as John Wagner brought up).

The big question all of us corporate bloggers are facing is how to become the Purple Cow we all want to be.

It ain't easy being purple...

[ness]

hi there,
i totally agree. i am a practicing pr professional and avid blogger-- i follow blogs, read them and always share my finding with my co-workers. it's very interesting to me though how some pr agencies and professionals are still slow to adapt to this emerging form of communications.

to me, we are at the beginning of an incredible communications vehicle, that if pr pro's and marketeres set the tone to, we could shape the way and the minds of the way corporations intearct with customers, partners and more importantly, consumers.

not sure if you picked up on the NYT article about Walmart and the awful job Edelman did at steering them within the blogsphere...

Wal-Mart Enlists Bloggers in P.R. Campaign
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/07/technology/07blog.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Anyway, amidst my whole diatribe, quite simply i really enjoy reading about your philsophy and practive of blogging among pr professionals and watching the developements unfold.

Currently, I am developing a practice for our agency to offer many of our clients whose technologies are affecting and initiating the Web2.0 revolution (that sounded so pr) (:

Any advice on the risks that may be associated with implementing such a program to old school pr?

thanks,
ness

[Jesse Skinner]

Please, don't use the term 'Web 2.0'. Keep talking about the revolutional ability of the Internet to empower the individual and level every playing field. But try, please, to avoid using such meaningless buzzwords as 'Web 2.0'. Thank you.

ps. You can save the world by blowing up buzzwords at:

http://www.thefutureoftheweb.com/blog/2006/2/buzzword-hellfire

[ness]

hence the (that sounded so pr) when i wrote it.
btw, have you been on-- http://buzzkiller.net/
i've been following them since '98...

thanks for sharing the other URL...

[Jesse Skinner]

That's great, ness. It's good to see the battle's being fought against meaninglessness :)

[steven e. streight who is vaspers the grate, blog revolutionist]

"where's the ROI?" is insane for any real businessperson to ask.

There is no ROI on Zero Expense.

Or if there is an expense connected with blogging, it is time, far more than $15 a month hosting fee.

Blogging eats a huge Hugh Hole in the humachine mind, and a black hole vortex displays the lack of absolute nothing, that was once called "thought".

A blog addict will never be more than just that.