Must get back to writing more on corporate blogging.  Allan, Stuart, Terry, Phil ... checking in and hope to take this forward on my trip to the US (will be in San Francisco and the Bay Area from the 19th to the 28th of October - and then heading to the East coast thereafter).

As starters - some links presenting different views.  On the heels of this article - Guardian Unlimited: Why blogs could be bad for business - comes this first-hand endorsement and demonstration of why blogs are good for business - by bringing in traffic - from a person who blogs in her organisation.  (Don't miss presentation on corporate innovation too).

Innovation and the power of the blog

Yesterday Cheskin and Fitch:Worldwide released a new research study on corporate innovation. Much to PR team's dismay, in spite of vigorous pre-pitching, the study didn't seem to catch on with the media (at least not yet). Nevertheless, on the day of the release, with only a BusinessWire distribution to our credit, our web traffic soared. To date we've had over 500 downloads of the report just from the Cheskin website (it's on the Fitch site as well).

Clearly, innovation is a hot topic. An equally important factor is the power of the blog - a huge amount of our web traffic yesterday was via blogs. Blogs and bloggers spread the word, including apple news, Rob Korver, and a German blog - Industrial Technology & Witchcraft (if I could read the site, perhaps I'd get the name, anyway...).

PR firms, PR departments and companies themselves need to take note of the power of this media over traditional media. It is truly amazing.  [Denise Klarquist]

11:31:41 AM    comment []  trackback []

This is my last post on the 31st Bharateeya Blog Mela (the Indian weekly carnival that highlights best of blog posts for a week).  Its been a really lively and somewhat controversial event - and was an amazing experience.   

Before i get back to 'regular' blogging, thought i'd share some of the things i've personally gained from hosting the event :

What i've learnt and gained :

• i've had some lively conversations and healthy debate with people i had not interacted with earlier - and know there's just so much to be gained from these conversations - take a look at the series of comments here for a sampling ! 
• i got a pretty interesting understanding of the 'mindset' of the Indian blogging community - in all its complexity and diversity
• i had the opportunity to really scan a whole lot of blogs new to me - and discovered many many delights
• i learnt how seriously this event is taken by many bloggers who have concerns about showcasing the best of Indian talent in the blog world
• i'm learning not to wallow in complexity and controversy but really enjoy the chaos (that i so inadvertently contributed to :):)) 
• it reminded me that what is value to one may not be perceived as value to another - and this is the beauty of this democratic process - each week if a reader can take away even one new or interesting blog, post, insight or thought - i'd say the event has been tremendously successful and of value
• my hits, referrals and rankings - for instance, my ranking on Blogstreet shot up from 1641 to 893 in almost a day, and my sitemeter showed hits that were 15 times more than the normal - i have some 10 new blogs that have added me to their blogroll.  Simply implying that i got a huge new set of readers to sample my blog which is quite amazing !

So all you folk who've been struck by the controversies - and are shying away from hosting the event - just believe that its a tremendous experience - an experience from which one can only gain - both qualitatively and quantitatively.

I know that Dave Pollard posts monthly rankings on Salon Blogs (not Canadian blogs as i had earlier stated - Dave kindly corrected me) - which is a system of highlighting most popular blogs per month - based on number of hits and inbound links from Technorati.  Thats a great way to showcase 'popularity' - as long as, IMHO, we see new blogs each time and it doesn't become a mere pat on the back for the same old set of A-listers.  Which is why i like the system at the Bharateeya Blog Mela - where posts that make it to the mela are nominated by other bloggers - with some discretion the host holds in selection.  Perhaps more difficult to do, more time-consuming, more qualitative in selection - yet the beauty is in being introduced to new thoughts and blogs - where gems hidden in blogs that are yet to be discovered can sparkle, where the value is decided then by the community.  

Has me thinking and wondering whether it would be useful for different blogging communities to have their own 'melas' or carnivals - say the best of the week from posts across the world - on a specific topic - for instance, social software, or knowledge management, or creativity, or innovation, or marketing ..........or any other area of interest.

What do you think ? 

10:15:59 AM    comment []  trackback []