Hello World!
I decided to leave the ‘hello world’ title. It seemed appropriate given this is my introduction to the world of blogging, a.k.a. ‘blogoshpere‘. I have put off starting a blog for all the usual reasons, including my belief that in many cases they were narcissistic indulgences. Over the past few months however, my own reading on-line, combined with the suggestions of people like Alec Saunders, and some of those attending a recent BarCamp in Ottawa, have all convinced me that I needed to start a blog. So what did I discover, or what was said to change my mind? I suppose it was the realization that blogging is the new business communication imperative … . It has become an important avenue for engaging in a conversation with their customers, suppliers and peers.
The term ‘conversation’ has been used a lot by marketing types involved with the internet ever since the Cluetrain Manifesto, and has been re popularized with the recent publication of the Naked Conversations. It is this attribute of the blogging experience that I didn’t fully appreciate before, that I now believe is so important. When I joined BNR in the mid 80′s, it was an incredible place of rich experiences, interaction, and learning. The work environment; the social events; the lunches with colleagues in the cafeteria, and the weekly lunch time learning sessions in the auditorium, were all places and situations that encouraged rich interactions with smart people that had similar interests and passions. It was an exciting place to be, and it was during these interactions that discoveries were made, innovations came to light, and new ideas were formed.
Today, there are fewer traditional institutions capable of providing the size, scope and environment conducive to this kind of dynamic exchange of ideas. But innovation and ideas don’t form in a vacuum, and people with the desire to learn and create, need vehicles to establish sizable communities and enable rich conversations to take place. The world wide popularity of BarCamps, Mash-ups and the like, attests to the need. And it is the ability of Blogs to enable some aspects of this conversation to take place that appeals to me. It is far from a perfect vehicle, and attracting the readership one is looking for, while competing in sea of similar blogs will, I am sure, prove to be a challenge. But what the heck, let’s see what happens …
