January 23, 2005
the corporate tipping point
General Motors starting a blog caused a real stir of excitement in the blogophere recently.
It wasn’t just that GM Vice Chairman Bob Lutz was blogging, but that he was blogging properly. Gosh, wow, he actually has a comment section and everything etc!
It’s not enough for some bloggers just to “get it”, to carry on doing their thing, writing away. No, the establishment-mainstream have to get it too. In their millions. In their tens of millions.
So the blogosphere waits for the corporate-mainstream “Tipping Point” to arrive, the point where blogging stops being the supposed realm of freaks, weirdos, unemployed marketing consultants, unpublished novelists, political junkies and underworked cube dwellers, and starts being HUGE! An essential pillar of any corporate strategy and execution etc etc.
The GM blog sent a signal that we might, might, might have reached the corporate tipping point (we reached the individual tipping point a while ago, methinks).
We want the corporate tipping point to arrive for two main reasons:
1. It validates those of us who got in there early, who staked a great piece of our long term credibility and reputation, who spent thousands of hours in the last few years writing away, in the belief that this new medium was the future.
2. When the corporate-mainstream world finally “gets it”, we expect a floodgate of demand from businesses to open for people like us– people who can blog properly, who have a reputation in this sphere, who can steer these wealthy companies down the strange path of this brave new world. Hello, Gravy Train. Hello, being able to make a living doing what you love, for a change.
The tipping point will arrive when two things happen:
1. When the bosses are assured that it actually works, that the return on investment is solid and measurable.
2. When the bosses are assured that blogging won’t open a whole can of worms, that companies won’t lose their grip on being able to make a buck for their shareholders.
But, like it says in “How To Be Creative” about the world of business:
They’re used to dealing with you in a certain way. They’re used to having a certain level of control over the relationship. And they want whatever makes them more prosperous. Sure, they might prefer it if you prosper as well, but that’s not their top priority.
If your idea is so good that it changes your dynamic enough to where you need them less, or God forbid, THE MARKET needs them less, then they’re going to resist your idea every chance they can.
Again, that’s human nature.
GOOD IDEAS ALTER THE POWER BALANCE IN RELATIONSHIPS, THAT IS WHY GOOD IDEAS ARE ALWAYS INITIALLY RESISTED.
We already know that blogging works. But we also know that it conflicts with some serioulsy well-entrenched business interests: Big Media, Big Politics, Big PR, Big Advertising, Big ERP etc.
The idea that blogs have no ROI is ridiculous. The real issue is about whose territory do blogs encroach on.
Hugh, do you really need the corporate world to
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
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.
Blogs
Hugh talks about whether blogs have reached the tipping point:The blogosphere waits for the corporate-mainstream
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
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.
What if companies suddenly get it?
So is Hugh saying that every blogger secretly wants to be a corporate PR person? But if every company suddenly gets it, then why would they need bloggers? Isn’t the current value of blogging to bring a valuable counterpoint to…
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.
Take This Blog And Shove It
Yesterday, I attended Blog Walk 6.0, a conference of sorts, where sixteen bloggers from across the U.S. and Europe arranged themselves in small open space groupings to discuss a wide variety of topics. How to make money from blogging was…
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!)