May 9, 2005
the porous membrane: why corporate blogging works.
The other day somebody asked me to explain why corporate blogging works. Sure, we know it’s the hot new thing and people are paying attention to it (including big media)… but why?
Why does it work? Seriously.
So I drew the diagram above.
1. In Cluetrain parlance, we say “markets are conversations”. So the diagram above represents your market, or “The Conversation”. That is demarkated by the outer circle “y”.
2. There is a smaller, inner circle “x”.
3. So the entire market, the “conversation” is seperated into two distinct parts, the inner area “A” and the outer area “B”.
4. Area “A” represents your company, the people supplying the market. We call that “The Internal Conversation”.
5. Area “B” represents the people in the market who are not making, but buying. Otherwise know as the customers. We call that “The External Conversation”.
6. So each market from a corporate point of view has an internal and external conversation. What seperates the two is a membrane, otherwise known as “x”.
7. Every company’s membrane is different, and controlled by a host of different technical and cultural factors.
8. Ideally, you want A and B to be identical as possible, or at least, in sync. The things that A is passionate about, B should also be passionate about. This we call “alignment”. A good example would be Apple. The people at Apple think the iPod is cool, and so do their customers. They are aligned.
9. When A and B are no longer aligned is when the company starts getting into trouble. When A starts saying their gizmo is great and B is telling everybody it sucks, then you have serious misalignment.
10. So how do you keep misalignment from happening?
11. The answer lies in “x”, the membrane that seperates A from B. The more porous the membrane, the easier it is for conversations between A and B, the internal and external, to happen. The easier for the conversations on both side of membrane “x” to adjust to the other, to become like the other.
12. And nothing, and I do mean nothing, pokes holes in the membrane better than blogs. You want porous? You got porous. Blogs punch holes in membranes like like it was Swiss cheese.
13. The more porous your membrane (“x”), the easier it is for the internal conversation to inform and align with the external conversation, and vice versa.
14. Not to mention it makes misalignment, if it happens, a lot easier to repair.
15. Of course this begs the question, why have a membrane “x” at all? Why bother with such a hierarchy? But that’s another story.
[AFTERTHOUGHT:] And yes, this works with internal blogs as well, poking holes in the membranes that seperate people within a corporate culture; aligning “the conversation” internally etc.
The other advantage of internal blogging is that it organises conversation into a long-term manageable form. Two people sharing ideas via blogs is a lot more permanent, viral and useful for the company than two people sharing the same information over by the watercooler.
[AFTERTHOUGHT:] Poking holes in membranes subverts hierarchies. Avast, ye scurvies etc.
[UPDATE:] Just added this post to The Hughtrain.
Beautiful, absolutely perfect.
Corporate Blogging Works
Ever wonder why corporate blogging works? Hugh MacLeod at gapingvoid has it nailed. I’m calling this the Cliff Notes version of all the corporate blogging books now in work. Over simplification? Perhaps.….
why corporate blogging works
Hugh The other day somebody asked me to explain why corporate blogging works.
Great provocative post .. and here’s a guy who’s put some meat on those bones.
http://www.commoncraft.com/archives/001040.html
Using Blogs and Wikis for Customer Support
gapingvoid: why corporate blogging works.
NOTE: This also works for educational blogging. Climb on the edutrain. Link: gapingvoid: why corporate blogging works.. why corporate blogging works. zzzzzz7654229.jpg The other day somebody asked me to explain why corporate blogging works. Sure, we kn…
whereas pr and marketing types have historically referred to various assimilation and perception strategies as optics, these emergent cominglings will henceforth be known osmotics.
I’m not sure why that diagram reminds me of grade seven sex ed. You know the sperm and egg thing. But still, that’s my peculiar brain misalignment. No biggie. Good point all the same.
You forgot to draw the line representing all the lawsuits brought by A against B for talking about their products in ways that didn’t suit them. A good example would be Apple. (And Microsoft).
Hugh says corporate blogging works
What blogging does and does best is to prepare the ground and make it ready for every other kind of conversation you have with customers.
On Corporate Blogging
gapingvoid: why corporate blogging works. A very interesting and simple assessment of why corporate blogging is cool. Cool for the company. Cool for the customer. So here we are…just a bunch of cool-as-cool-can-be-cucumbers.…
"why corporate blogging works"
Well, here we are, running circles around each other in a ven diagram on a site named the gaping void:…
Microsoft’s Inner Monologue
Today I read this on The Gaping Void. It’s a very interesting take on corporate blogging. Basically they’re…
Ahh, now I know what I do: poke holes in the membrane! By the way, it only takes a $350 camcorder to blow some pretty big holes in it. Doing that daily over at http://channel9.msdn.com
Why Corporate Blogging Works
Hugh presents a neat theory of why corporate blogging works. His main ingredients are: the venerable concept of alignment between organization and environment; and the newer concept of market as conversation. In this post, he serves up the theory with …
Why corporate blogging works…a riff
I have to hand it to my man Hugh at Gapingvoid.com — he can sum up the spicy essence in clear cartoonery.…
Great explanation!
Corporate Blogging Explained
There is a succinct yet thorough explanation of why corporate blogging works.
Though not anything near “corporate”, Ray-Way Products gets it:
http://www.rayjardine.com/campfire/index.shtml
Why corporate blogging works
Nice one, I call it ‘Outside>In’ instead of ‘Inside>Out’…more here…http://www.webpronews.com/enterprise/marketing/wpn-16-20050419OpenSourceMarketingGoesOutsideIn.html
Corporate Blogs — Instrument For Conversation Alignment
Anyway, great model from Hugh. Now we’re waiting for your ideas on why internal corporate blogging works!
“nothing, pokes holes in the membrane better than blogs”, of course other channels that create communication through the membrane (like Scoble’s video camera) also help create even more holes, the more the merrier!
Blogging benefits
A friend is having real difficulty understanding the point of blogging. While showering this morning, I tried to reflect on the changes that have happened to me since I started getting seriously involved towards the end of last year. My
Cool — the hokey-cokey theory of corporate blogging. Look forward to seeing further unbundling of these ideas
Warum funktionieren Corporate Blogs tats
Hi Hugh,
Agree wholeheartedly with the idea of internal/external blogs — Ideascape — to promote more conversations. I think enterprise blogs will help create candor in the workplace and help more organizations move to a loose hierarchy.
On the other hand, businesses have too many so-called experts that fear the dissemination of ideas.
Corporate Blogging
“Ideally, you want A and B to be identical as possible, or at least, in sync. The things that A is passionate about, B should also be passionate about. This we call “alignment”. A good example would be Apple. The people at Apple think the iPod is cool,…
Hugh, this the most succinct explanation I have ever come across. It’s a thing of beauty.
It’s not hard to understand why many corporate people feel threatened by this way of thinking. It’s just too flat, too direct. It will be very interesting to be part of the muckracking…
Customer feedback, 1 to 1 marketing, Customer relationship management, expectation management. For all of these things Blogs can be a tremendous addition to a company
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[AFTERTHOUGHT:] Poking holes in membranes subverts hierarchies. Avast, ye scurvies etc.
Corporate blogging is not a disruptive, chaotic act. It is a filter. The company controls what escapes. Unless you are talking about a supposedly unsanctioned blog like minimicrosoft.
How can information purposefully disseminated by an organization subvert any heirarchies inherent in that corporate structure?
Why Corporate Blogging Works
Gapingvoid has a very simple, elegant explanation called Why Corporate Blogging Works. It explains the dynamics of corporate blogging and how it can help both the customers and the company. Marketing too often seems to be trying to convince people…
Why Corporate Blogging Works
Gapingvoid has a very simple, elegant explanation called Why Corporate Blogging Works. It explains the dynamics of corporate blogging and how it can help both the customers and the company. Marketing too often seems to be trying to convince people…
Why corporate blogging works…the membrane
Why corporate blogging works…the membrane
Wow. So 15 points crammed full of trendy jargon to basically say that it improves the flow of information between companies and customers? Riveting stuff…
Or have I missed the irony?
You missed the irony, Dilbert.
It’s the Blogs, Stupid
“Blogging is forcing firms like ours to shut up and listen.” says Mike Manuel in the latest interview posted over Naked Conversations, formerly the Red Couch.
the X membrane not pourous, but porous. Just trying to make communication easier…
Thanks Steve. Yeah, my spelling sucks.
[NOTE TO SELF:] When is MT going to introduce a damn spell checker?
Excellent post — but in light of my reading of Sherky prompted by one of your earlier posts, I question whether it’s possible for the conversations to be actively “organised into a more manageable form.” This is what fake corporate blogs try to do and for which they are rightly decried.
Secondly, doesn’t the location and porousness of the corporate membrane vary according to the particular conversation that is occurring.
In Case You Know Someone Who Still Doesn’t Get It
… show them this
What is the internet?
Clearly, there are many answers to this question.
Hugh
Monsieur Hugh, the profane pundit of all things Hughtrain has a good post on why corporate blogging works — with graphics no less. ‘Tis all about permeating membranes ‘twould seem. I’d try to explain it but then I’d have to
Nice, memorable illustration and interesting posts… clearly a blog is a tool that lends itself to more than just Corporations.
Request: regarding the after thought… would anyone share pointers/bkms for the novice org that has an intranet but no internal blogs… interested in exploring the viral watercooler conversation approach
I recently picked up the whole blog thing and really had a hard time trying to figure out how it works. To me it still seemed pretty vague and dangerous to experiment without being sure of the possible implications the audience and the tranprency of the bloggers emotions. A recent experiment ended up with http://www.kibow.blogspot.com as a preliminary trial to get response from the neprhology community (our marketing target audience) and the general public.
To keep the kind of conversation between A and B as consistent as can be, both have to be equally transparent and frank especially from the corporate bloggers. It is also important for the corporate blogger to be open and honest instead of using blogs as another form of publicity to reiterate the company’s sales speech. Trying to be politically correct and diplomatic about critical issues brings rise to controversy and attacks by the rest of the blogosphere after which the company loses credibility in this realm. Yet it is hard to find the balance point between transparency and confidentiality. This issue has probably been discussed a million times over yet I seem to find no panacea for it. the explanation using porosity gives a clear picture of this yet seems vague on its actual application. One comment I would like to make however is that porosity is both ways… the less you reveal or less truthful to the public, probably the less accurate the response as well… after all… we have all been trained how objective marketing messages and even news nowadays can be…
As for the success of my little blogging adventure, I should be updating its progress and results on gaining closer communication and feedback again. Perhaps after blogging the next thing is to figure how to publicise my blog to the right target audience. After all, no eyeballs means no feedback…
Internal, External Business Conversations
Hugh writes a great post about why business blogs can help organizations improve customer connections. (Updated to later illustrate that the concept is relevant in intra-organizational discussions as well.) The metaphor is that there is a membrane that…
Responding to:
Request: regarding the after thought… would anyone share pointers/bkms for the novice org that has an intranet but no internal blogs… interested in exploring the viral watercooler conversation approach
Al, in my opinion, the approach(es), architecture of the blogs and the dynamics that you might *coach* towards would depend upon the purpose of the internal blogs and the issues being addressed by blogging internally (beyond what might already be addressed by the intranet).
But that’s just one person’s opinion.
How corporate blogging and knowledge
Hugh Macleod has drawn a very simple picture what has lots of words to go with it that describes the beauty of corporate blogging.
So where is the knowledge bit?
By breaking through the membranes that Hugh discusses help the overall communication…
couple of things…better term for this may be “blogmosis” — the sharing of information between a customer/corp blog. pr and marketing types can have osmotics.
secondly, these membranes are not one size fits all. different customers will need different conversation/sharing. that’s the beauty of a great corp blogging strategy…there can be a multitude of blogs for various customers. blogs can be the ultimate in customer personalization. depending on the business, each customer will have a blog specific to their needs and more importantly, the people who need to converse with them. any good enterprise blog software package will allow for multiple blogs that can only be accessed by “subscribed” customers.
this may be a bit too nuts and bolts, but it seems an important distinction. a corporate blog is unlikely to be a single site dedicated to all customers. there will be a wide variety of blogs reflecting the needs of various customers. at least, that’s my view from within the corporate confines.…
Having spent a good chunk o’ my life studying strategic management theory and how it works or doesn’t in real life…
I’ve concluded that most organizations: a) don’t *really* want to get the feedback that would show them that their current strategy isn’t working (perhaps more precise: don’t really want to *work* to to get that feedback); and, b) don’t know what to do with it if they do get that feedback.
It’s the same old story… this is why CEO’s have “Yes Men.”
I prefer the metaphor that the firm’s strategy should be seen as a theory, and that theory should be as rigorously tested as any hypothesis a scientist would test.
Rockster, could not agree more to “strategy should be seen as a theory, and that theory should be as rigorously tested”!
Add the Business Model to that and “every day, every minute” and dynamics would be required all over — just like real life should be
Static is boring and deadly, dynamic is life itself.