Effecting Blogging - Joining the Conversation with Peter Andrews and Luis Suarez

A few weeks ago one of my fellow IBM colleagues, Peter Andrews (Faculty and Innovation Strategist - Executive Business Institute) asked whether I’d like to have an interview with him talking about the topic of blogging and the kind of impact that is currently having within the corporate world. As you can probably imagine I just couldn’t ignore such an invitation and we spent a bit over one hour talking about blogs and how they are shaping the conversation within the enterprise. And so Effecting Blogging: Joining the Conversation was born and published on ibm.com.

That is right. Earlier on today, that particular interview I did with Peter was published over on the Internet and, if you are interested, you can grab it over here. To give you an idea of what you will find in there he is the summary published on the Web site:

"To some blogging is intriguing but mysterious. But with some basic tools and a few guidelines, it can be an effective business tool and even replace email as the center of work activity. The keys to successful blogging are writing about a theme you are passionate about, being consistent and persistent, having a thick skin and recognizing, above all else, that you are not in control. In essence, blogging is interactive, which means listening and reacting is as important as having your say."

From there onwards, there were a number of different questions I went through with Peter and I thought I would share some of them over here as well, so that you can get a glimpse of what you will find in the interview and how you may be able to skim through them easily:

Q. Could you say a bit about social computing and its emerging value to businesses?

Q. Back to blogging. What advice would you give to someone who wants, not necessarily to blog, but to get the most value (from a business perspective) from the blogs that are out there?

Q. This naturally leads to the advice you’d give someone who wants to be a successful blogger (for his or her career / business), since participation becomes inevitable. What would that advice be?

Q. One of your theses, which you put into practice, is making blogging, rather than face-to-face meetings or e-mail, the center of your work / life. Could you walk me through a typical day that illustrates this?

Q. This is almost unimaginable for some of us. Can it be approached with baby steps? If someone wants to make blogging central to their business life, what steps should they take?

Q. What are some of the creative uses of blogs that you’ve seen? What is your advice to those people?

Q. In your blogging life, have you had any surprises?

Q. On the other hand… Have you seen any blogging disasters? Any cautionary tales?

Q. Blogging, as with much of Web 2.0, is participatory, and possibly democratizing. Doesn’t this in some ways threaten management?

Q. Why do companies need to accept the ethos of blogging? Can there be a compromise between current business culture and this emerging participatory culture?
Does anything about the blogosphere worry you?

Q. How will blogging transform society?

Q. How does it change the discourse? Does it open up new topics? Change the depth? Engage new participants with different perspectives from text
bloggers?

Q. What do you see in the future for blogging and allied practices?

Yes, I realise that it is a long interview (Guess that’s what happens when you are excited about the topic you are passionate about! ), so without much further ado, I am just going to point you to Effecting Blogging: Joining the conversation from where you can download the full PDF IBM Executive Technology Report.

Hope you enjoy it, just as much as I did going through the interview with Peter. And stay tuned, because in that same interview I have already hinted some things about my new mission at work with the current job I do on a daily basis for this year. Some people may find it shocking. Some people may find it impossible. I can only say it’s now my reality!!

Tags: IBM, Executive Technology Report, Executive Business Institute, EBI, Peter Andrews, Effecting Blogging, Blogs, Metablogging, Social Computing, Social Networking, Social Software, Social Media, Collaboration, Communities, Innovation, Conversations, Knowledge Sharing, KM, Knowledge Management, ibm.com, e-mail, Productivity, Blogging 101, Technology Adoption

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 14th, 2008 at 10:59 pm and is filed under Collaboration, Communities, Enterprise2.0, IBM, Innovation, Knowledge Management, Knowledge Tools, Metablogging, Personal KM, Productivity Tools, Social Computing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.