Okay, okay, I take back my words…

not about my position on blogs, but those about having said the last words about them. Let the discussion continue!

Some interesting phenomena have occurred that bear mentioning since I began this public revelation and now discourse. First, I’ve been alerted that I need to be careful what I say, as there may be a misconception about whose position is really advanced here. So, for the record,

ALL CONTENT POSTED ON THIS BLOG BY THE BLOGGER (ME) PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE, ARE SOLELY THE RESPONSIBILITY AND VIEWS OF THE BLOGGER ONLY (ME AGAIN), AND DO NOT REPRESENT THE VIEWS OF APQC, ITS CUSTOMERS, SUPPLIERS, OR OTHER AGENTS (BASICALLY, MANAGEMENT IS NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR MY POSTS, THE TITLE OF THIS BLOG NOTWITHSTANDING). I PRESUME THAT THE RESPONSES POSTED TO IT ARE ONLY THOSE OF THEIR RESPECTIVE AUTHORS AS WELL.

With that out of the way, I also realize that my communication skills must need some improvement, as my position on the use of blogs is clearly not clear to those responding. I’ll need time to work on that—please be patient.

This discussion has also given me an opportunity to learn that more people read this blog than I could have imagined, with some of the lurkers now commenting publicly, indicating that I must have hit on a topic with real interest. In fact, there have been more responses to my posts re blogs than on any other topic—what delicious irony. For that I thank you.

On to some of the responses then, which I will comment on as responses. Maybe I will be moved after all, as I’m finding this a bit exciting now…

Blog no more..on the subject of blogging, that is

Last week and this brought me new data points that have convinced me conclusively that blogs won’t be anything I recommend to my clients any time soon for knowledge sharing. For the record, let me again repeat that I think blogs will show some business value in the future—they’re already ubiquitous—but they’re just not going to be on my menu of knowledge sharing devices today. So let’s go over the latest good advice I received:

Describe the business value of the blog—essentially understand the value proposition of using the blog. Fair enough, and the same advice we would give to our clients regarding any aspect of knowledge sharing we would guide them to undertake. Old news. Let’s presume for a moment that an internal company blog is intended to decrease the time to competency of its employees. I’d like to learn of an example from among the 60-million+ blogs out there where the company thinks it has earned back its investment.

Blogs as discussion forums and discussion forums as blogs? Well, discussion forums have so much over blogs that if you want to use the discussion forum device and call it a blog, I’d be very happy. Down with blogs, l ong live the discussion forum!

Next, keep the posts short. I like this one and will do all I can to adhere to it. Interestingly however, our president Carla O’Dell sent me a link to an article regarding blog and wiki security concerns. Within that article was a hotlink to a large technology company’s blog site, where any employee can have a blog—for internal or external consumption. Wanting to conduct research I went to the site, sought out the top read poster, and spent some time reading it. Lots of long personal rants, some links to other information, and in the end, completely useless for anything that I personally care about.

The final nail in the coffin for me was an article in the March 20, 2007 issue of The Wall Street Journal. Ever hear of Twitter or Dodgeball? They’re among the latest rage—wireless instant messaging and social networking all rolled into one. I can hardly wait to hear of a company that espouses the virtues of those sites!

Oh, one last item—to those who would hijack my blog by responding with something like, “I like your blog, please go see mine at uselessstuff.blog.com” are assured of only one thing—I wouldn’t go to your blog even if you paid me to do so. You obviously don’t understand a key fact of knowledge sharing; that you don’t get any play if you aren’t trusted, and frankly, I don’t trust you.

So that’s it—I kept this as short as I could. And in the words of that famed philosopher Forrest Gump, “That’s all I’m going to say about it.” On to something else!