if you only have time for one clue this year, this is the one to get…
we are not seats or eyeballs or end users or consumers.
We are human beings–and our reach exceeds your grasp
deal with it.
THE CLUETRAIN MANIFESTO
Do click on the link. Explore for a while, and then come back. I’ll wait.
This is not the company Internet. This is the Internet of creativity and innovation. Ideas succeed and fail quickly. Information moves and products grow exponetially. It is the Internet ocean, not the Internet highway.
blogs, tagging, social bookmarking, web 2.0, the half the show is in the comments, corporations are not humans, the audience decides what’s relevant, links are currency, content is king.
It is time to change the words we use about ourselves, our products, and the people we serve–to change our language. To listen, speak, read, and write with new words. When we do that, we automatically will change how we think.
Many believe the best way to learn a language is immersion. Blogging is immersion in this case.
Exciting things are happening . . . why would anyone want to miss out on this? It is history in the making.
Liz Strauss
One misconception that many nonbloggers have is that blogs are the poor person’s website. Appearances aside, the differences put that idea in the dust. Blogs might better be described as websites and intranets evolved.
Blogs are entirely different technology based on content management. Fortune 500 companies might not have a noisy online blogging presence, but companies such as McDonald’s and Carbondale Bicycle have already switched their intranets to internal blogs.
What do they know?
- Blogs are inexpensive to start and run.
- Blogs require relatively little technical expertise to use.
- Blogs offer sophisticated content management systems that can handle daily updating by multiple users.
- Blogs are interactive. They invite communication.
- Blogs can easily be accessed from all kinds of internet connections–even telephones.
- Blogs offer a flexibility of uses to meet the needs of the moment.
Just as we upgrade our skill sets, blogs are 21st-century websites and intranets. They can do what the others did, but they are more entrepreneurial–faster, more flexible, more innovative and accessible–and they do it at small business costs.
Blogs can be as beautiful as any website . . . and they’re smart too. Blogs don’t have to just sit there. They can actually hold an intelligent conversation in real time.
Blogs are promotion. They are customer relations. They are community and communication. They are even team meetings across continents. Blogs are problem solvers and a fine way to establish a brand.
Do you have blogging in your strategic plan? It’s not hard. I can show you how in a few hours.
Liz Strauss
From the beginning, blogging is different than any other form of media. I think that stems from it’s personal, ever-changing nature and from the way it draws interaction, on more than one level, from both the writer and the reader.
Over these next few posts, I’m going to attempt to identify and explain the investment, interaction, and inherent appeal of blogging, and how, in it’s own way, blogging seems to be the technologically-balanced counterpart to writing.
Blogging is efficient, effective, and easy. However, it is the infinite ability to achieve elegance, and unique expression that keeps me engaged and going. Like the best product line, blogging doesn’t change what I do, it makes what I do easier and makes me look smarter doing it.
Blogging has all of the upside ease of a piece of paper with none of the downside difficulties.
Liz Strauss
ME “Liz” Strauss has worked over 20 years in print, software, and online publishing. As VP and Publisher for an American textbook company, Liz developed products and strategic plans with publishers in Europe, Australia, the UK, and Ireland. She has worked small companies making acquisitions, companies in crisis, and corporate giants such as Pearson, Reed Elsevier, and Wolters Kluwer. Her expertise extends from product development and marketing into business-startups and long-term strategic planning.
Today, at Liz Strauss .com, Liz is a writer, career coach, and strategic planner with a focus on business writing, marketing, and educational publishing. Her business writing is known for its clarity, originality, and a voice that develops a warm relationship with readers. Her presentations are known for being jam-packed with information, motivation, and fun.
Liz’s personal blog is known for stories that relight memories and for the way it inspires readers to join her as she wonders about crayons, idiosyncracies, and things that don’t fit.
HAVE A QUESTION, suggestion, or just want to talk business? E-mail Liz at lizsun2@gmail.com.
