gapingvoid: "cartoons drawn on the back of business cards"

Hugh, do you really need the corporate world to ‘validate’ what you do? Is your measurement of success based upon whether or not a ‘floodgate of demand’ emerges for people who know how to converse online?

Me? I’m not sure I’m ready for blogging to ‘tip’ and ‘cross the chasm’ to the early majority. I have a history of fleeing brands, music groups, ideas, etc. once they become part of the mainstream fabric. I much prefer to play in the early adopter phase than play in the early majority and late majority phases.

Now, I am ready for the corporate world to go ‘cluetrain’ and ‘hughtrain’ on us. But if corporations do go ‘cluetrain’ and ‘hughtrain’ on us, then blogging will only be one tiny way the corporate world engages us.

I'm in two minds about it, Johnnie. On one level I'm quite happy continuing doing what I'm doimg, oblivious to the outside world.

On another level, the more the blogosphere has grown, the easier it has become for me to make a living. I'd be a fool not to notice the connection.

Whose territory do blogs encroach on? Excellent question.

I've been saying for about two years now that branded blogs and wikis represent a new revenue stream for the agency business. Only very recently have any ears inside the agency biz perked up.

It may take a bit longer to realize, but the ad biz will eventually catch up/on. Managing brand identities, in whatever form they may take, or media they may use, is the ad guy's job. Having said that, blogs can clearly be administered from inside a client company, in which case encroachment is perpetrated by the client itself, against their agency partners.

Hugh, I'm new to your blog and love it so forgive my naivete but how does blogging and the growth of the blogosphere make it easier for you to make a living?

Thanks

Well Scott, right now ALL of my current day-job client base consists of people who first came across me through reading my blog.

The more the blogosphere grew over the last 2 years, the faster I arrived at this point.

I reckon the marketing gadfly in me doesn’t like it when we marketers try to ‘monetize’ authentic conversations … such as blogs. BzzAgent is trying to monetize ‘buzz’ and in the process I believe BzzAgent is hurting buzz marketing more than helping buzz marketing.

My fear is that blogs will bludgeoned by marketers who want to control the conversation and find ways to make money off of it. We’ve seen this happen countless times before …

Using blogs as a marketing tool to attract customers/clients to one’s services is a different story. I don’t see this as trying to ‘monetize’ blogging but rather, I see it as telling one’s story of why a business should do business with them.

(PS … this is johnmoore from the unitedstates and not Johnnie Moore from the UK.)

Don't know if I agree, John. I think conversations about making money can be authentic- both me, my clients and my non-client readers need to eat.

As long as your open about it, I don't see a problem.

Perhaps your gadflyness might be a result of you having been in an industry which FUCKING LIES all the time. So you may equate talking business with FUCKING LYING. Heh.

I can certainly relate with that. I used to work for large agencies, don't forget.

Look at the other side of it John Moore (from the USA). If blogs help companies become more authentic, or more honest, then the inevitable move to corporate blogs can only be seen as a terrific development.

You're still not satisfying your earlier query: when it comes to blogs what are the deliverables? How will ROI become apparent?

Steve, the "Deliverables"? I have no idea. What are you intending to deliver on your blog?

Lies?
Pompous Waffle?
PR crap?

Or do you intend to do something more interesting?

The ball's in your court, not the $3000-per-day asshole consultant's.

And as far as ROI is concerned, again, I have no idea. What are you actually willing to invest?

Your own time, energy, and emotion?

Or are you just hoping to hire some little cuteypie part-time intern to futz around with the usal corporatespeak on your company's behalf?

Frankly, if people don't get blogs, I really don't care. They can go buy Superbowl ads instead. And in 5 years they can explain to their spouses why they no longer have jobs.

That being said, the ROI/deliverable question will be answered like all questions are answered in the blogosphere, when people start talking about it openly. It's still early days, though.

If blogging is on the verge of "tipping/crossing" (and it looks close), I'm wondering...what's next? What comes *after* blogging? Where are the innovators and early adopters heading once blogs jump into the fat part of the curve?

The gadfly in me is concerned that ‘irrational exuberance’ for monetizing blogging will mess up a good thing much like the drive to monetize the Internet messed up things for awhile.

Then again, if it wasn’t for the e-commerce irrational exuberance ... the Cluetrain may never have been born.

JohnMoore, blogs are no more immune from human folly than anything else.

I think a lot of corporate burnouts got into blogging after dotbomb/9-11 as a refuge from the corporate world that had burned them out...

Now they're seeing their refuge threatened by the corporates discovering them. AND THEY'RE NOT HAPPY!

Hey, I'd just want to laugh out loud at David Burn's suggestion that "Managing brand identities, in whatever form they may take, or media they may use, is the ad guy's job."

Show me a brand that gets blogging and show me the ad man who "manages it for them". C'mon David, get real.

I assure you I'm as real as they come, Johnnie.

GM gets blogs. There are others, but none as prominent.

I never said ad men (or ad women) were doing the managing of corporate, customer-facing blogs today. I did imply and I do believe that that's about to change.

The history of Radio, TV, and the Web is similar to this.

Guglielmo Marconi digs up the vacuum tube, creates wireless telegraphy, and clever hobbyists see the potential and a massively creative boom follows, only to watch as "their" medium is co-opted by big money and subverted to sell stuff.

The same happens when Philo Farnsworth starts transmitting pictures, and again when AOLosers are suddenly let loose on the Internet in 1991.

The same thing will happen, is happening, to blogs.

Blogs by the rich and famous will become more visited than those by visionary thinkers, the clever will be co-opted by the wealthy to create clever content for their blogs, consolidation and regulation will proscribe content and the public debate currently enriched by blogs will become stultified as the entrenched power base places boundaries on the conversation, steers the questions and assumes an answer.

The best that we can hope for is that WE end up higher up in the hierarchy as a result of a first mover advantage. Or, rather, I can hope that HUGH ends up better off as a first mover advantage.

Or maybe, Nathan, the blog is the medium that finally gets it right--and prevents that from happening.

I think blogs will affect all areas. (And I also believe that it's going to get harder and harder to separate PR, advertising, marketing, etc. - it's all going to just be communications, period.) And the rise of blogs will be both a blessing and a curse - while extra revenue for those trying to sell communications to businesses, for us in-house people it will just be one more duty added to the long list. And unless Lutz posts a little more loyally I don't think he's going to be the corporate tipping point. (He hasn't posted since Jan. 14th!)