January 25, 2005

Dang !! Buzz Bruggeman is on stage at the Blog Business summit talking about blogging, ActiveWords (his software) and the purpose of feedback loops.

The part of his presentation that is making me cringe is that he’s also taklking about and demoing Blogjet, and going on about how great it is, how easy it makes blogging … and of course I find myself wishing that he would also mention that Qumana is a worthy alternative to Blogjet.

But I guess he’ll have to learn about it first. But dang !!! what an audience to talk to about Qumana.

As Lenn and his co-presenter are wrapping up they leave us with this, which I think is right.

“An open company can evolve faster than a closed company since users are feeding the company with ideas, expactations and data“.

I’m becoming more and more convinced that Microsoft is becoming a real leader in terms of big corporations using blogs to connect and iinteract .. with customers and (I assume employees).

Here at the Blog Business summit I’m now watching Lenn Pryor on stage presenting about blogging in Microsoft (he’s Robert Scoble’s boss … Scoble is sitting two chairs over in this row, listening to Lenn).

Lenn said about 5 minutes ago that he can’t understand how a company today can continue without blogging … it’s simply the most effective way to open an ongoing dialogue with existing and potential customers and other stakeholders.

Lenn’s currently saying “Be Smart - we hire smart, responsible adults, and we expect them to act like smart responsible adults”. And, in the employment agreement there are appropriate confidentiality agreemnts.

He goes on to say “Don’t Break News” (regardless of 1st Amendment Rights
Additional points regarding guidleines to Microsoft employees who blog:

- Corporate communications and blogging are two different things, BUT they are complementary … make friends.

- Be cautious with 3rd party information.

- Respect prior employers

- Identify yourself

- Be cautious in how you offer support or advice

- Speak for yourself

- Think about reactions before you hit “post”