How to Capitalize on Blogging

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5 Feb 2004

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

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