Business Blog Coach

A Work in Progress

My name is Andrew Feldstein and I met Evelyn a week ago Thursday at the Blog Business Summit. I had had a very exciting “intro to blogging” from Dave Taylor the day before, but Thursday was the official beginning of the conference and Evelyn’s session was the first official session. "Staying On Top of the Buzz: Blog Monitoring Tools and Techniques" could have been anything really, but the last thing I expected was to hear a thoughtful and thought provoking talk that subtly minimized the concept of “monitoring” itself.

Evelyn drew a very clear distinction between “monitoring” and “listening”. It is the kind of distinction made by those for whom the differences are meaningful. Listening is personal. Listening is involved and involving. Monitoring is impersonal. Monitoring is gathering and taking away. More of what she and others said at the summit has been recounted elsewhere but this is what attracted my attention. After the session I went up, introduced myself, and told her why I was there and what I was doing. She invited me to share the ongoing process on this blog. This is the short version.

I started with an e-commerce site called alotlikeChristmas.com. It is there to look at but it is in the midst of a redesign and everything is taking longer than I had anticipated. As I started exploring different ways to promote my site I quickly came to realize that I needed to make content an integral part of the project. There is even a heading in the business plan entitled “Content is King”.

I came up with the idea of creating, what I began referring to as a "hybrid Christmas magazine/weblog". I envisioned an exciting, interesting, comprehensive source for all things Christmas. We’d feature recipes and movies and books and travel destinations and lore and traditions and inspirational stories and, yeah I know, lots of people do that. But I want this to be a place for sharing and discovery and out of the ordinary. I hope people will visit and find out something they didn’t know but are glad to find out. I hope people will share things that we don’t know and are glad to discover.

Initially I was going to have this magblog ? blogmag? as an entity independent from the commerce site but that didn't make sense. So the idea is to combine content with commerce. Right now there isn’t much happening as I struggle with layout and design. I was hoping to have the site presentable for a “Christmas in July” launching but the process has been a lot more complicated than I thought it was going to be. So many choices! So many promising directions! So many dead ends!

Anyway, I want this "magblog" to be interactive. This is where Evelyn’s ideas began to resonate. I don’t want to just talk at people. I want to participate in conversations and listen to stories. One aspect of this idea is a separate blog for those in my kid’s generation. At the risk of dating myself my son is 18 and my daughter is 24 and when it comes to Christmas, I’m not hearing their “voice” out there. Yes, I’m certainly hearing people talking to and about Generation Y. But they generally are trying to describe them or sell them something. I want to give my children, their friends and peers an open forum to express there thoughts and ideas.

So the first question is how to create a forum that people will want to participate in. How do you create a balance between providing valuable content and having a welcoming environment where folks will want to come to share and be a part of the community?

A Sense of Place: Brands, Authenticity, Blogs

The enchantment of the mind with archetypal landscape..is a phenomenon as old as myth and persistent as dream... We seem to have an insatiable thirst for places that don't exist. - The Solace of Fierce Landscapes

There's a reason I use the metaphor of a place to describe the blogosphere and its myriad of global bazaars, souks, and marketplaces lightly separated by geography (link, link, link is the new location, location, location) and communities.

A sense of place evokes symbols, images, myth, feelings that flow into our mind. The essence of brands, yes.

But much more primal too.

Words are the way we complicate the simple. The deepest aspects of life are about wordlessness – something you can’t articulate. - Pico Iyer

I once wrote: Being a symbol, an image, a metaphor for the deepest aspects of life, a brand is more potent than the tangible product or service itself.

I overheard Robert Scoble last week explain, "Blogs are aggregators for passions." Envision that.

That's why blogs are like places for me. Places for people. What is the place like? What types of people would hang out there? (Nope, not demographics, perhaps ethnographics work here.) For instance, I picture this blog as a salon, or an artist's colony (and I define art broadly). And many tech blogs evoke a sense of BarCamp or FooCamp all year long.

I'm rising to Andrew of Changing Way's challenge.  He points to a Business Week story titled, "The Myth of Authenticity" where they ask: What do brands like Häagen Dazs, Baileys Original Irish Cream, Bombay Sapphire and Kerrygold all have in common?

If in the name of "authenticity" we remove the soul, spirit, symbol, myth, personality from a company, I'm not sure we'd like the lifeless husk that's left. Yes, it's possible to eat, breathe, ooze Ireland and not have been born there. I know I felt I'd returned home when I felt the wind rustle the heather in the stark Burren and tasted the sea salt at the headlands of Dingle.

Right now, I'm picturing a cafe where the waft of curry luxuriates in the air, there are crates of tea from China bearing the Port of Oakland stamp tucked in the corner, rumpled world maps hang in the sage-green walls, music alternates between a small band in Zimbambwe to Tibetan folk music. Visitors slink into the couches to sip tea and languish. S-l-o-w-l-y. No one is in a rush. Pilgrims arrive from Spain, India, or from the wanderings of their own private odysseys. A few folks are writing poems and reciting them aloud. The clocks show the time in Ceylon (Sri Lanka), Formosa (Taiwan), Johannesburg, Calcutta. Throughout the world, tea is a symbol infused with meaning.

Yeah, that gives you a hint of the new blog I'm launching. And it's not about tea. And it is. And it's not a single author blog either, it's a community blog. (Email if you're intrigued.)

There's a reason I use the metaphor of a place to describe the blogosphere and its myriad of global bazaars, souks, and marketplaces lightly separated by geography (link, link, link is the new location, location, location) and communities.

A sense of place evokes symbols, images, myth, feelings that flow into our mind. The essence of brands, yes.

But much more primal too.

Words are the way we complicate the simple. The deepest aspects of life are about wordlessness – something you can’t articulate. - Pico Iyer

I once wrote: Being a symbol, an image, a metaphor for the deepest aspects of life, a brand is more potent than the tangible product or service itself.

I overheard Robert Scoble last week explain, "Blogs are aggregators for passions." Envision that.

That's why blogs are like places for me. Places for people. What is the place like? What types of people would hang out there? (Nope, not demographics, perhaps ethnographics work here.) For instance, I picture this blog as a salon, or an artist's colony (and I define art broadly). And many tech blogs evoke a sense of BarCamp or FooCamp all year long.

I'm rising to Andrew of Changing Way's challenge.  He points to a Business Week story titled, "The Myth of Authenticity" where they ask: What do brands like Häagen Dazs, Baileys Original Irish Cream, Bombay Sapphire and Kerrygold all have in common?

If in the name of "authenticity" we remove the soul, spirit, symbol, myth, personality from a company, I'm not sure we'd like the lifeless husk that's left. Yes, it's possible to eat, breathe, ooze Ireland and not have been born there. I know I felt I'd returned home when I felt the wind rustle the heather in the stark Burren and tasted the sea salt at the headlands of Dingle.

Right now, I'm picturing a cafe where the waft of curry luxuriates in the air, there are crates of tea from China bearing the Port of Oakland stamp tucked in the corner, rumpled world maps hang in the sage-green walls, music alternates between a small band in Zimbambwe to Tibetan folk music. Visitors slink into the couches to sip tea and languish. S-l-o-w-l-y. No one is in a rush. Pilgrims arrive from Spain, India, or from the wanderings of their own private odysseys. A few folks are writing poems and reciting them aloud. The clocks show the time in Ceylon (Sri Lanka), Formosa (Taiwan), Johannesburg, Calcutta. Throughout the world, tea is a symbol infused with meaning.

Yeah, that gives you a hint of the new blog I'm launching. And it's not about tea. And it is. And it's not a single author blog either, it's a community blog. (Email if you're intrigued.)

Creating a Visual Map of Your Marketplace

This isn't EXACTLY what I said at the Blog Business Summit today for the "Staying on Top of the Buzz" opening session, but it's really close.

Not in post, but I mentioned live is that it's important to use tools like Google Alerts, Feedster, PubSub, BlogPulse, Technorati to create a visual map of your marketplace ecosystem - start to connect the dots - of whom's talking to whom regularly. That's your core marketplace. Your core marketplace will alert you to issues and signal market opportunities if you're present.

I'm going through this processs right this minute for the model blog and will outline specifics for the model blog in a subsequent post. Even in a market unknown to you, this is a fairly quick process that yield good results in even an hour. (The real trick is keeping up...) Here are the general steps:

1. The obvious. Listening via URL searches and watchlists on your company URL and competitor's URL. Are they typical of folks that come to your stall at the marketplace?Then add them to your RSS reader (I recommend Bloglines for newbies; here are my own public subscriptions.)

2. The less obvious.  Watch what your customers read and care about. For an enterprise software startup's blog, we used watchlists on distinctive keywords like "latency" (latency was trigger as it is a frequent customer problem that their product solved). What are other keywords that touch on your customer's burning issues? Since we noted our customers had distributed workplaces spread all over the world they kept in touch via Internet portals and intranets (and the company accelerated the performance of those apps), we also started seeking out outsourcing blogs, knowledge management blogs, and others talking about "distributed workplace" issues.  Customers considered that stuff news. Add those to your RSS reader.

3. Least obvious. Take a look at blogrolls (usually left or right column of a weblog), click through comment streams, track the 'conversation' at one relevant blog (i.e. use BlogPulse's conversation tracker). Note what trade mags, traditional news sources, books, other resources are mentioned and relied on (these might lead to other conversational media sources too). What events do they meet at offline? Notice the subtle community feel of who's linking to whom. Check which blogs they bookmark on del.icio.us (here are mine). Do a bit of guessing and sleuthing (if needed) to see their public subscriptions like Bloglines (basically a comprehensive blogroll, and typically more current). Look at Technorati tags that are relevant to you for blogs you may have missed, for instance here's business blogging and here's the Blog Business Summit tags.

4. Once you're getting a sense of the marketplace dynamics, get a company rep to jump in and participate when appropriate via comments, private emails, going to 'marketplace' face-to-face events, etc.

Technorati tag: blogbusinesssummit, bbs05, business blogging

Little Meme

I'm participating in the Fast Company BlogJam 2005 and noting the 'small is beautiful' meme as big recurring theme. The business I write my story about has maybe room for 12 customers, 2 employees (that I saw), and a very limited menu. They focus all right.

If you're assuming that the model/showcase blog is something B-I-G. It's not.

• No IPO. No VC's. Been there, done that.
• Since a corporation's legal charter is to maximize shareholder profit (solely), also investigating alternative structures like ManyOne.net where a foundation owns the for-profit.
• Start with niche product connecting to intertwined meaning themes such as savoring the present moment and the journey within. Expand by enabling other artisans to sell in their own voice under umbrella theme.
• Interate, iterate, iterate (I'm still a fan of agile software processes although I'm no longer a techie.) In other words, we don't know EXACTLY where we'll end up. It's an adventure.
• Ultra-small team with partner-like relationships (no employee-employer relationships).
• Featuring 'small' personal storytelling by real people, not celebrities.

I'd say the idea stems from lessons learned circa 1999 and its aftermath. Fast and Behemoth don't go togther, eh? I like the emphasis on focus, attention, simplicity, agility and the personal, human connection.

Everything below is from the BlogJam & following links except Bnoopy piece... And start with the great summary chock full of links: Get Small Fast, Brian Oberkirch

If You Build It Does Not Mean They Will Come

The young William Butler Yeats wryly commented to his fellow poets in The Rhymers Club one evening at The Cheshire Cheese: "None of us can say who will succeed, or even who has or has not talent. The only thing certain about us is that we are too many."

That echoes: "The barrier [to entry in publishing] is not technical any more, it's building an audience." - Chris Nolan

I know that blogs have crossed the tipping point when you see blogs mentioned on just about every cover. In the recent Intele-Card News magazine, a trade mag for the prepaid telecom industry, the editor pipes up on business blogging:

One company, Stonyfield Farm, which processes organic yogurt, now maintains five blogs  at its website all with the objective of learning more about customers  as well as informing visitors of its contributions to the local and national community... The whole movement towards blogs reinforces the importance of staying in tune with your customers' needs. While focus groups and surveys have their place, this is another way to solicit candid comments. - Theresa Ward, Editor, "Blog Appeal: An Emerging Way to Interact With Customers", Intele-CardNews, July 2005

Why does Evelyn see HealthyConcerns as at the forefront of a trend? Because, while sponsored by a company, the blog is not about the company talking to its customers, it's about customers talking...and the company having a chance to listen in. - Elisa Camahort, "Healthy Concerns...the start of a trend?Healthy Concerns...the start of a trend?", HealthConcerns.com blog

Wonder/ponder: Why in a world that has over 14 million blogs (and exponentially growing) the same handful of business blogs are always mentioned (especially if you are seeking examples outside the high-tech industry). In this case, Stonyfield Farms, yet again.

Wonder/Ponder: Why in a world where customer attention is scarcer and scarcer, we indundate customers with information that is of interest to our balance sheet but is not necessarily relevant to or enhances their lives?

Credits: Harbottle's Pub Guide, entry to Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese in London.

The Untapped Market Is In The Abundance Gap

In A Whole New Mind, by Daniel Pink, Pink joins his wife on a foray to Target. He admires a $5.99 toilet brush designed by one of the foremost architects and product designers in the world. He writes:

"Only against a backdrop of abundance could so many people seek beautiful trash cans and toilet brushes – converting mundane, utilitarian products into objects of desire.

"In an age of abundance, appealing only to rational, logical, and functional needs is woefully insufficient. Engineers must figure out how to get things to work. But if those things are not also pleasing to the eye or compelling to the soul, few will buy them. There are too many other options. Mastery of design, empathy, play, and other seemingly “soft” aptitudes is now the main way for individuals, firms, and consumers themselves to stand out in a crowded marketplace.

Abundance elevates R-Directed Thinking [creative, right-brain thinking] another important way as well. When I’m on my deathbed, it’s unlikely that I’ll look back on my life and say, “Well, I’ve made some mistakes. But at least I snagged one of those Michael Graves toilet brushes back in 2004.” Abundance has brought beautiful things to our lives, but that bevy of material  goods has not necessarily made us happier. The paradox of prosperity is that while living standards have risen steadily decade after decade, personal, family, and life satisfaction  haven’t budged. That’s why more people – liberated by prosperity but not fulfilled by it – are resolving the paradox by searching for meaning. As Columbia University’s Andrew Delbanco puts it, “The most striking feature of contemporary culture is the unslaked craving for transcendence.”

Stories and Metaphors

Yeah, this post violates what I'm about to say.

First, before I dig into any business plan discovery, we'll lay out the context for a while. And answer two questions that confront any new business. Why? and Why now?

The posts are obviously not presentations, but I'd like to use Doc Searl's "It's the Story, Stupid: Don't Let  Presentation Software Keep You From Getting Your Story Across" as the framework for many of the blog posts here. Secondarily, I'll use the book One Page Business Plan as well.

To set context, I'll think a lot in terms of metaphor. Powerful stories have powerful metaphors. For instance, I'm intrigued by the blogs as public marketplaces, as fourth place refuges metaphor.

I was strolling in Pike Place Market just before Gnomedex 5.0.

It’s publicly-owned by the city and managed by the Pike Place Market Preservation and Development Authority. I learned from their Heritage Center signs that:

"The Pike Place Market began as a place where consumers could “Meet the Producer” and buy directly from farmers. These words also extend to artists and craftspeople, who must themselves sell the pieces they have made. They are required to meet customers in the Market at least once a week. Chances are, the person behind the table is the farmer, artisan, or business owner who grew or created the product you are now purchasing."

[The ‘producer’  is virtually any of us. Including 'consumers.']

“There is a difference between a public marketplace and a shopping mall – a difference in how the marketplace functions as a social setting meeting the human need to be with others.”

Business Plan Discovery Begins Next Week

Next week, I'll use this space to begin discovering the business plan for a brand new showcase blog (secondarily this site itself).

This site was supposed to launch in late January. But, uh, my priorities changed.

Then I had an idea for a twist on business blogs. Ideas, hmmm. Showing folks a blueprint for a new design is too abstract. Just like home builders do, this idea needed a full-out model home (er, model blog) with interior decorator's flourishes and walk-throughs. You know, you don't just try hard to imagine the space staring at a two-dimensional drawing, you actually touch the walls, feel the tile under your feet, the fans twirling over your head.

Then what happened is the showcase blog took on a life of its own...