How to Capitalize on Blogging

Freshness Warning
This blog post is over 19 years old. It's possible that the information you read below isn't current and the links no longer work.

Today I spoke at Fastlane Ventures How to Capitalize on Blogging workshop. As promised, the slides from my presentation are available in graphic and text-only formats. I’ll probably turn my speaker notes into a set of blog entries or an article when I get the time.

Being heavily involved in blogging, it’s easy for me to forget how outside the mainstream blogs really are. Most of the people I talked to today had only a vague idea what blogs are. I kept hammering the point that blogs are simply faster, easier ways of publishing content. Blogs aren’t some mystic new thing, but the ease of use and informality of the tools are breeding conversations in new ways.

When discussing RSS, someone asked Bill French if developers would blog about the changes they made to an application, could the tech writers use RSS to track what was changed? Later I pointed out to her that the developers already are blogging the changes, they just don’t know it. Every time they commit their code into the source control system and put in their comments, they are blogging it. Those comments could easily be published to the Web in the style of a blog. Those comments could be published as an RSS feed.

Alex Williams
February 12, 2004 1:17 AM

Adam -- You did a great job in working with the folks at the event to help them understand what blogs are and how they can be used. What is clear to us is that we need to continue elevating the discussion about blogs, RSS and syndication. For by the end of the day, you could tell that something had clicked with this group. They were engaged with Judith Meskil. They asked pointed and insightful questions to Bill French. They were beyond the haze, beginning to see the value that blogs and RSS can provide. And that is great to see. For it shows that this stuff is not rocket science and people will embrace it as long as they have a little time to process it. To keep the discussion going, I am working with Bill Flitter of FastLane Ventures and Pheedo to do an experiment we are calling RSS Neighborhood. The goal is to make the process of learning about RSS both enjoyable and unintimidating. We'll get small groups together, share what we know and them bring the info back online to share with the world. The first RSS Neighborhood is March 22 in the Bay Area. Robert Scoble from Microsoft will be joining us and discussing "Why is blogging hot and why does it matter for business?" The venue is yet to be determined. I will let you know. Look forward to catching up soon. Alex.

Elderbear
February 19, 2004 1:14 AM

Thanks for the sharing the great slides. I sent the link to my boss. I've been planting seeds about setting up an organizational blog and I think your presentation will get him excited (and make more work for me!) John

This discussion has been closed.

Recently Written

The Trap of The Sales-Led Product (Dec 10)
It’s not a winning way to build a product company.
The Hidden Cost of Custom Customer Features (Dec 7)
One-off features will cost you more than you think and make your customers unhappy.
Domain expertise in Product Management (Nov 16)
When you're hiring software product managers, hire for product management skills. Looking for domain experts will reduce the pool of people you can hire and might just be worse for your product.
Strategy Means Saying No (Oct 27)
An oft-overlooked aspect of strategy is to define what you are not doing. There are lots of adjacent problems you can attack. Strategy means defining which ones you will ignore.
Understanding vision, strategy, and execution (Oct 24)
Vision is what you're trying to do. Strategy is broad strokes on how you'll get there. Execution is the tasks you complete to complete the strategy.
How to advance your Product Market Fit KPI (Oct 21)
Finding the gaps in your product that will unlock the next round of growth.
Developer Relations as Developer Success (Oct 19)
Outreach, marketing, and developer evangelism are a part of Developer Relations. But the companies that are most successful with developers spend most of their time on something else.
Developer Experience Principle 6: Easy to Maintain (Oct 17)
Keeping your product Easy to Maintain will improve the lives of your team and your customers. It will help keep your docs up to date. Your SDKs and APIs will be released in sync. Your tooling and overall experience will shine.

Older...

What I'm Reading

Contact

Adam Kalsey

+1 916 600 2497

Resume

Public Key

© 1999-2023 Adam Kalsey.