Communities

communities of interest and practice

One Down …

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I started this blog one year ago today. I committed myself to write for at least one year on a regular basis (~400 actual posts).

I had had some other niche or project-specific blogs prior to last year, but almost all of my posts have been on this site for the past 365 days. A couple of weeks ago I wrote about the benefits of blogging for me and there really aren’t many negative aspects, other than the time commitment, so here comes year two :-)

Thanks to all of you who have helped me stay motivated this past year with your visits, comments and referrals.

Blogs for Traditional Businesses

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During the past few weeks I’ve had the opportunity to once again take to the airways. Along the way I met some very interesting people and the talk usually turned to business. I explained what I did and several people were quite interested in blogs, particularly in order to reduce their e-mail, increase their reach or gather competitive intelligence.

Naturally, blogging has been taken up by the IT industry, as reported by the media; but brick & mortar industries are less in the news. The Tin Basher Blog, about a sheet metal company in the UK, is a notable exception. According to the Tin Basher, there is a direct return on investment on blogging for this company:

If we’re being conservative, we’ll say there’s been a 10% increase since we incorporated a blog. And, we’ll also say that it costs 10% of that 10% to have me write it, maintain the other websites and pay for hosting etc. And, once we get the next order we’ve been promised, that figure suddenly rises to nearer 40% of annual turnover, but without any increase in cost.

This is concrete and tangible, which you may know really appeals to me. It also makes sense to Will at GoodBasic, who has been discussing this issue and offers services around business and academic blogging .

I think that we have reached the tipping point on this technology, which has been tested by the Innovators & Early Adopters and we are ready to bridge the chasm to the more conservative majority. Using social software like blogs or even wikis is no longer about technology as software & hardware but rather technology as the application of organised and scientific knowledge to solve practical problems. There is a growing market for those who want to know how to use blogs for business – without the hype or geek speak.

Small Businesses, Loosely Joined

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Following on the last post that business is about networks, is this article from the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle about three individual business operators (craftsman, interior designer & architect) who team up in different ways for different projects:


When they come together, the way that they work is as diverse as a buffet. Sometimes they recommend each other to their respective clients. Sometimes they work together as a team, while other times one will work for the other two. At times they unite and bid on larger commercial projects that they would not have been able to have on their own.

I have talked about the Organization of the Future and Natural Enterprises and am using some of these ideas in my own practice. When you work alone, you can max out pretty quickly on a project, so you always need a good list of partners. Like the three businessmen in the article, I don’t see any reason yet to create a corporate body or a defined partnership, and am content with this constantly morphing business model – just the right size for the job at hand. This self-styled "Dream Team", flies in the face of traditional business management consulting:

But the three have never crafted a business plan, named a board, taken titles or even set formal fee structures. They also maintain their separate companies.

Via Small Business Trends

Business 101

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I guess that everything you really wanted to know about business you already learned in kindergarten, or maybe even earlier. I was talking about some of my projects last night and summed up the same business process at work with each organisation. Basically, business is about connecting someone with a need to someone with a solution, usually through some kind of referral system.

For instance if I need to get my roof fixed, I ask some friends and neighbours to recommend a good contactor. I take this information and filter it by who recommended whom and what my needs are. I then contact my first choice, engage the contractor, and then become another referrer (positive or negative) of these services.

In the corporate world it’s the same. An executive sees a problem, goes through his or her network and comes up with some recommendations. If you can provide a solution, and have some kind of relationship with one of that corporation’s networks, then you have a chance of doing business with them (I know, RFP’s are different, but networks still have an influence).

Therefore, doing business is – the act of connecting a problem with a solution though a reputation-based referral system (network).

This underscores the importance of understanding how networks work. You are only as good as the reputation that you have within the referral networks of your prospective clients. This is temporary and requires constant work and a slip can lead to ruin (e.g. Vioxx, WorldCom, Kryptonite Locks, etc).

So don’t think "markets", think "networks".

Taking back the Web

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So how powerful is the blog as a marketing tool?

One year ago I had about 50 visitors per month on this site. Today, I have more than 30,000. I just did a search for "harold" on Google, and of over 11 million articles, I am now on the first page; the last entry, but still page one. I know that this is a bit of vanity and I don’t believe that this position will last [I may have been kicked to page two already], but the lesson here is that I have spent no money on advertising nor marketing.

I write 3-10 short articles per week and I participate in conversations that interest me. I have not paid for search engine optimization and I have not hired any marketing specialists. I’m just doing on the web what previously I was doing face-to-face. This is the power of blogs; to extend our reach while retrieving our sense of community.

Now this great honour of being on Google page one does not equate to market share nor additional revenue, but it shows how some guy in a small town in Atlantic Canada can be part of the global village. This is the power of networks, as discussed in The Cluetrain and recently evidenced by the over 25 million downloads of the free, open source web browser – Firefox.

Yes, Virginia, we can take back the Web.

Portals – Lessons Learnt

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In the paper, A False Dawn Over the Field of Dreams? [full-text no longer available], Stephen James Musgrave looks at the UK experience with community portals, including educational ones. He refers to a study of portals that divided them into a four-layer scale of interactivity:

  1. Promotional: sites providing information but little interaction.
  2. Content: sites providing more sophisticated information and some interaction.
  3. Content Plus: sites providing very useful content and more advanced on-line self-service features.
  4. Transactional: sites which are accessible, complete, thoughtful, and coherent; and with more than one type of on-line interaction (e.g. payment, application, consultation, bookings).

Only 2% of sites were considered Transactional – pity.

In concluding how to blend people and technology, Musgrave states:

The People and Technology improvements addressed in this narrative are required so as to enhance a portal based delivery of citizen-centric services through the adoption of common standards, and the development of common components. Technology improvement through systems integration is required to achieve the interactivity demanded by users; giving services that will be valued by users. The use of open source software – with vendor support – is likely to become a "middle way" that gives ownership of core elements to the portal developer community; minimising problems with vendor lock-in, whilst enabling industrial strength portal products to be deployed.

Though not a portal, Scott Wilson’s graphical description of a Virtual Learning Environment shows some of the same principles as those espoused by Musgrave. It is a series of smaller pieces (many open source) loosely joined, and focused on the needs of the individual, not the institution. This approach could avoid the hopelessly optimistic "if you build it, they will come" syndrome alluded to in the title.

Action Research

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Robert Paterson offers some good advice to federal Social Development Minister Ken Dryden, in the spirit of action research, to stop trying to be all things to all people and get on with creating an effective child care programme:

Instead of trying to do a deal with everyone – why not put out the DNA of what you want. Not just baby sitting but development. Development that most can access. Attach say 2 Billion to this and say that the first 3 provinces that agree will get the deal as offered. You will then monitor the deal for 3 years and we will all learn what works.

Often when we try to address complex problems that involve multiple parties and perspectives, we can get analysis paralysis, because we will never have all of the answers. Sometimes it’s best to just get on with it – by starting small, being open to learn from our experiences and adjusting as we go. Rob’s advice makes sense to me.

 

Real Benefits of Blogs

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Starting a blog can be a daunting task, as this tongue-in-cheek Kuro5hin article shows. Dave Pollard says that business is not embracing blogs because they don’t address immediate needs (e.g. in this fiscal quarter). Dave provides good pointers on how and why blogs should be used in business, and he describes his own adoption journey. His is similar to my own experience – heard about blogs, tested out some free stuff, started using a feed reader, and then added blogging to my static website. I don’t like to talk about blogging for blogging’s sake [too many instances of the "b" word in this post], but let’s face it; once you’ve tried it, you’re hooked. You don’t have to write a blog, as there is a heck of a lot just to read.

After an intensive year online, these are the tangible benefits to my business:

  • Using a feed reader (via RSS), saves a lot of time and bookmarking.
  • The information I get from bloggers is usually weeks ahead of the mainstream press. Call this competitive intelligence.
  • By blogging, I have raised my profile on the web and increased visits to my site by a factor of 1000 in less than one year. This is cheap marketing.
  • I use my database of posts when preparing reports, proposals and presentations. It helps to have a searchable system like Drupal.
  • Blogging forces me to think and reflect in order to write, so that what was just an idea in my mind becomes more concrete.
  • The underlying technology of easy posting and RSS to keep track of things, makes a lot of sense for collaborative learning and collaborative work – two areas of interest for my business.
  • Through blogging, I have met a number of business partners.
  • Blogging keeps me in touch with a lot of interesting people and expands my view of the world, providing new ideas for my business.
  • When I have a problem, especially a technical one, I post it on my site or someone else’s and usually get an informed answer within 24 hours. It’s like a large performance support system.
  • It allows people to get to know my opinions before they engage me as a consultant; saving time and potential frustrations.

Like e-mail, blogs are practical tools for everyday business. There are abuses of both (spam) but I think that blogs are one more tool that give the small business operator a real competitive advantage.

Market Diversification

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Godfrey Parkin has an excellent post on what is really happening in the global economy; namely that multinationals will follow the money. The next century is looking like it will be the Chinese century.

Corporate America apparently no longer values having brain-power or talent on the domestic payroll – the notion of human capital as an investment is being replaced with the notion of human ingenuity as an expense. If our money, our designers, our R&D, our manufacturing, our management, our business partners, our suppliers, and our major markets are all in Asia, where does that leave the USA?

In Canada, we continue to focus almost exclusively on exporting to the US. As Godfrey puts it, Wal*Mart does more business with China than all of Canada does. The business development strategies that I see presented at every “innovation” forum in the region have the same old story presented by analysts, bureaucrats and government. That story is about exporting our products and services to the US. The talk about diversified global markets is negligible. Given the warning signals on the state of the US economy, it would make sense not to put all of our economic eggs in one basket, n’est-ce pas?

Some Free Advice for Higher Education

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Here is some free advice for any university or college, public or private. If you are wondering how you can stay in touch with your graduates and foster a sense of community, especially when it comes to future fund raising, then offer free blogs. This beats collecting addresses, making phone calls and all the other ways that development officers try to raise interest and money. Let your graduates be part of your university when you’re not asking for money, and they will be there when you need them.

Wellesley College is already doing it, so get on the wave now. If you need any advice, give me a call [shameless self-promotion].