since dutch asked, here is a compilation of uses...
moving into a somewhat derivative mode and based on something seen from
my friends at Userland - a blog that is set up to track project
readiness. if you go to Scott Young's blog,
you can see it. simply put, via RSS feeds from other status blogs, the
readiness blog will change readiness indication from green to red to
yellow depending upon the feed from another blog site. quite an
inventive method to track project readiness via a blog/RSS. that's why
i love blogs/RSS....if you can imagine it, it can be done via a blog. i
am starting to see more and more creative examples out on the
blogosphere. long time coming, but that was blog use #11
i thought it
would be a really useful thing for someone to plant a bunch of
thermocouplers in the ground around the area to monitor ground
temperatures. i would believe that if someone did some homework, they
could likely model/correlate the depth of ground freezing to the most
likely time for a house pipe to burst. say, once the ground is 32
degrees or colder at a depth of 3 feet, there is a very strong
probability of burst pipes in a home.
no doubt, there are plenty of variables to consider, but, if someone
would take the time to measure ground temp, send the data to a blog
enabled computer, then once the temp hits a certain range, the computer
auto generates a warning of ground freeze. this warning is fed to a
blog and all that have subscribed to the feed for that blog will get an
impending freeze notification. after that, they do whatever people in
the north do to prevent frozen pipes. for the restoration guys, they
may put more people on call based upon the warning.....
#8 - using a podcast file in a blog setting....lots of ways to do this...couple of examples
education - what better method for a teacher to communicate with a sick
or homebound child? recorded lesson for the day encoded on a MP3 file
and placed on the school blog for sick/homebound children....or better
yet, hospital setting...pass down information from one shift to
other..."give Ms. Jones 10 cc of demerol" in a MP3 form on a nurse
shift blog...instead of Ms. Jones getting 100 cc because of a
handwriting mistake....
#9 - "brandwatching" on a blog....set up a "brandwatch" on Technorati,
Pubsub, etc...drop the claimed watchlist into a blog page set up as an
aggregator site and presto, you have a site that will house all
"brandwatch" info...
#6 - let's say you live in California and earthquakes make you really
nervous. all you think about is the big one that is sure to hit any
day....let's assume that you can't fathom moving away from earthquakes,
high taxes, high cost of living, etc., but you would sleep better at
night knowing what the tectonic plates were doing. sadly, without your
own sophisticated seismic equipment, you pretty much are destined to be
nervous.
now, no doubt, the seismic scientists who do watch all of the earth
rumblings likely have some information that gives them some clue of an
impending earthquake. volcanoe watchers seem to have a pretty solid
handle on impending volcanoe eruptions. i would assume the earthquake
folks have a decent idea as well of seismic activity. trouble is, they
don't seem to have a decent mechanism to alert anyone except via phone.
enter the blog....
without too much imagination, i can envision the use of a blog to
communicate unusual seismic activity to interested party's. either the
scientist enters an alert message into the blog or the seismic
equipment triggers an alarm that sets off a prewritten seismic alert
blog post. once the post is submitted, "subscribers" are alerted via
their preferred notification format. once alerted, they come to the
blog for the information. seems simple enough.....this setup could work
in a variety of ways and we will explore them later.
#7 - also, while perusing Blogspotting today,
I came across an interesting concept called crunkies. basically, a
crunkie will be a location sensitive message that shows up on someone's
cell phone. nice enough, but somewhat down the road. in the near term,
here's how i think a blog can perform a similar function. for
reference, in the post, a restaurant was the example.
now, to me, an enterprising restaurant really needs to reach out to
their customer base. they should have a blog that allows people to get
to know the chef, the wait staff, the bar keeps, etc....obviously,
these staff members would be the bloggers for the restaurant. now,
let's suppose to have access to the blog, a customer would have to
register for the blog so the restaurant now has some basic data about
the person, including how they would like to be notified of blog
content changes. so, this restaurant is really good at keeping up with
who eats what and when. in fact, they are so good at it, they have a
database on their customer's eating habits/favorites.
since this restaurant has a blog and a good customer database, they can
now marry the two together to communicate special events/meals that
appeal to specific customers. at this restaurant, any time a special
event or menu change is created, it goes into the blog site for
posting. say, for example, Scott really likes Nebraska beef and eats it
almost every time he comes to the restaurant. now, this blog is very
sophisticated and based upon menu descriptions - such as Nebraska beef
- it knows to send out a special alert to Scott via his preferred blog
notification mechanism - to his pager/phone/IM/email. the blog will
also send via RSS the same message to Scott's feed reader.....Scott
gets alerted that Nebraska beef is on the menu, his saliva glands go
into hyperdrive and shortly, Scott shows up for an unplanned steak
dinner. a perfect blend of tieing a customer database into a blog/RSS
strategy.....
#4 - a riff off a great comment by BPG - big picture guy. blogs can be
a terrific communication mechanism between corporations and former
employees. Long term corporations (IBM, Moto,GE) could use blogs to
reach out to retirees (schools/alumni for that matter) and continue to
stay in contact with them. The company could elicit feedback on new
programs, communicate health benefit changes (without sending out
costly forms) and give people a chance to communicate with former
employees. A really excellent method for a company to stay in touch
with former employees.
honestly, a blog is ideal for any institution interested in continuing
a dialogue with former employees, students, campers, volunteers,
etc...especially, great value between an university and the alumni.
quite a few university professors are using blogs for coursework...it
will be a matter of time before the alumni groups pick up on it.
#5 - while in a university/corporation vein....another great avenue for
a blog is as a conduit between a corporation's university relations
people (recruiters) and a university. creating a conversation between
corporate employees and university students could open up a much better
understanding of what a company has to offer versus what a new employee
is seeking. corporations could provide students with an understanding
of education needs/wants and provide a glimpse into the culture of the
company. a university recruiting blog could very much bring positive
attention to a corporation.
5/2/2005
#3 - continuing on the communication theme....most sales calls follow a
pattern....call on customer, take notes about conversation, shake
hands, rush off to airport to catch next flight...depending upon length
of trip/# of customers to visit, the salesperson may be carrying a
laptop and may take the time to find internet access, then transpose
notes into an email for delivery to a desired address list.
like many emails, maybe these get read, maybe not...more likely than
not, they don't get saved into anything resembling a centralized
archive of customer visit notes and likely don't get discussed in a
formalized manner.
enter the customer visit blog....a blog site used to discuss and
archive sales trip summaries. using either a direct blog post method or
an email to blog method, the salesperson inputs the summary/actions of
each customer visit. the audience of the blog would be other sales
members, sales management and interested business functions. each
audience member would either be auto-notified of new content via a
preferred notificiation vehicle (pager, IM, SMS, email) and they would
come to the site to read/discuss the summary. or, they would RSS the
site for content update notification.
another innovative and more traveler friendly method to update the blog
is the use of a Blackberry mail update scheme. again, via email to blog
content delivery, the salesperson would simply type an email on the
Blackberry, then send to the blog site. much easier than carrying a
laptop around....all in all, a simple and effective method to quickly
communicate and archive important information....
#2 - after a blog is installed for corp level communication emails, a
company can start branching out into more sophisticated uses. i have
always found it odd that a company is willing to pay money for a
conference call hosting service and to pay extra for the hosting
service to record the call for later playback. With a blog and simple
recording equipment, a company can save a nice chunk of change.
Effectively, the company will perform a "podcast" and store it on a
centralized blog site. Call it a "corpcast".
As with the corp communication blog, a "corpcast" post will enable the
360 degree communication benefit. People come to the site, listen to
the "corpcast", then via comments, they pose questions/views that can
be responded to by the original speaker or by other listeners. often,
during these corp conf calls q&a sessions are held to obtain
further insights. quite often, there are very few questions. with the
"corpcast" blog, people will have time to listen more carefully to the
presentation and then, ask more probing questions. they get all of this
for much less the cost of a conf call hosting service. not only can
audio files be archived on a blog, but video files as well.
bonus material
just a few riffs that aren't quite as detailed
#12 - daycare blog - tell mommy/daddy that little joe has a fever
#13 - veterinarian blog - tell mommy/daddy that spike is finished with his ball removal and is ready to come home
#14 - mechanic blog - provide on line estimates to the customer and get instructions on proceeding with repairs
#15 - contact info blog - SMS new phone numbers etc to a contact storage blog site
#16 - doctor referral blog - instead of paging the doctor, input the
patient condition...doctor blogs to take two and call him in the
morning....
