Less than a month has passed since I first visited Robert to pitch him on what would become The Red Couch Project. It's been two weeks and a day since Roberted opted to make this project transparent via the Blogosphere. Our greatest challenge has been to work out our process of working together--even greater than determining the book's contents. We've come a long way. The Red Couch will contain more of Robert's thinking and more of my writing.
This is as it should be. Robert has a passion for and understanding of blogging that very few people can match. His vision and knowlege have been demonstrated in thousands of postings over more than four years. His story--and how it has changed the face of Microsoft--is applicable to other businesses everywhere and it will be woven into the fabric of The Red Couch.
My job will be to to organize and articulate his thoughts, with yours and with the many case studies we discuss into a cohesive argument that businesses must adopt blogging or face extinction.
This is no small task. As a marketing consultant in the past year, I've advised clients more than a dozen times to start blogging. There is progress, but it is slow. A year ago, the suggestion was flatly dismissed and my suggestion to do it was poorly received. Today, clients are thinking about it, asking more questions, trying to understand, then dismissing it because they don't fully understand and because they consider other marketing "deliverables" of higher priority.
Next year, I believe a few will clients will try out blogs, but will do it all wrong. They'll relegate blogging to a mid-level marcom who will port language from press releases and collateral materials onto the blog. They will review and polish what gets posted. They'll filter comments and screen out the nastiness. In short, they will treat blogging as another channel to communicate the same stuff in the same manner as all their other marketing messages. Blogging will be an add-on tactic.
That's what I see happening next year. The year after, I hope they will be reading a book by Robert and me, and that book will bring them to understand that blogging is strategic--not tactical. That it replaces the committee work of marketing technicians and it's efficiency and effectiveness supercedes everything that has come before it.
The year after that, I hope, like Jeremy Wright, to spend my time on book promotional tours and telling clients how to improve the effectiveness of their blogging programs, without corrupting their credibility. Robert, of course, will have his own TV show, perhaps replacing Donald Trump and it will podcast as well.
