The Authentic Eccentric

One of the lists that I am a member of, Robert Middleton’s excellent InfoGuru forum is presently having an interesting debate on blogs. The question arose as to why blogs matter and what role they have in small business. Since many of the members are new to blogging and RSS feeds, they (and I) struggled to define the strategic and or tactical use for a blog in a small business setting.

Today, I was cruising round the web and ran across Jon Udell’s post, the network is the blog. Instant epiphany - especially at this part:

The blog network is made of people. We are the nodes, actively filtering and retransmitting knowledge. Clearly this architecture can help manage the glut of information. More subtly, it can also help ensure that no vital inputs are suppressed because nobody has to rely on a single source. If one of the feeds I monitor doesn’t react to some event in a given domain, another probably will. When they all react, I know it was an especially important event.

If the network is the blog (and I perceive it to be so) what business owner wouldn’t want to own their own? Managing the pace and flow of information in an organization is critical - blogs, used properly, provide virtually turnkey instant publishing capability. In other words, true information on demand.

Pair that with information publishing by your own internal subject matter experts and voila - an organization on the same page as its customers, alternative income streams, dominant organic SEO positioning and worldwide access. Now, what small business owner doesn’t want that?

Perhaps one that is working with consultants that don’t understand the concept or power of blogs