March 1, 2006
because you can’t live in a hammer
Blogs are like hammers. They are tools for building stuff.
When you talk about building a house with a carpenter, you don’t mind him talking about his hammer for a while. Nobody minds indulging a craftsman, within reason.
“This hammer is great for this,” he’ll gush. “This hammer is great for that…”
So you think yes, hammers are good things, and indeed his hammer looks like a particularly fine example.
But eventualy you’re going to interrupt his joyous ode to hammers. After a couple of minutes you’re going to abruptly change the subject:
“Cool. Now let’s talk about the ACTUAL HOUSE you’re going to build for me…”
And if the carpenter is any good, he won’t have any problem with that.
trying to follow your analogy along to it’s logical conclusion here, hugh. as far as i can tell, your analogy breaks down like so…
occupation tool outcome
— — — — — — — — — — –
carpenter hammer house
blogger blog ???
what goes in the ??? space? marketing? conversation? marketing conversation? high sales? sex appeal? all of the above?
or, perhaps, is the word “blogger” incorrect? should the bottom line of my little grid above be
marketer blog sales/sex/market share
?
Man, did you nail that one!
[guffaw. weeze. har har har.]
Seriously, though. This is brilliant, Hugh.
Does this mean the cartoon spree is over?
Very zen, Hugh.
@Scotty — that is what I think Hugh was getting to — don’t tell me about your wonderful blog, tell me what it’s doing for you/me/somebody …
@lisa — somehow I doubt it.
Ding! You win the prize!
Hugh’s right though (as usual). Too many people/companies this year are saying ‘Hey! If I start a blog it’s going to do X,Y,Z for me.’ Wrong. The only one who is going to do X,Y,Z is *you*… like Hugh says, a blog is just one of many tools you can use to do that.
Sometimes you hit the nail home, sometimes you bang your thumb?
Ergo, the blogger is more important than the blog?
When trying to get blogs to work in a corporate environment, the most common argument is that: how is that going to affect my bottom line?
So, yes, people out there — the ones without blogs
Camilo,
What is writing good for? It’s good for readers who like stories.
If the story is compelling and tied in some way to the product or service offered, you’ve got a winner. Some old schoolers called it branding.
Hugh,
It’s not what some one else can do with their tools for you, it should be, what this can do for others.….
How did all the replies miss “… everything looks like a nail”?
The problem is that blogs are not particularly *good* tools for many tasks, while the marketing reply is that it’s a poor craftsman who blames his tools.
Tailors who sell ultra-luxury items to wealthy men, in a market with a high barrier to entry, are almost pathological exceptions proving the rule.
no – Hugh’s statement comes across as “I don’t care what you do, as long as, it benefits ME”
Which is a sad way to go through life.