CEO Bloggers' Club

Reading Blogs

I find that many people don't grasp how blogs get read. I personally use an RSS reader called Newsgator.  I find however that after I explain the concept of a blog, the person I am talking with is already a bit overwhelmed. Needless to say also explaining RSS really can loose some executives. What are other people running into? Do you have a favorite RSS reader? Do you tell your associates about it? Are your associates jumping on the blogging wagon?

Anne Stanton

The Norwich Group 

LinkedIn Jobs: a social approach to recruitment

As I hinted last Friday and posted today on my blog, LinkedIn Jobs is now available as a preview.

Like other job sites, you will be able to set search criteria regarding a position (except salary level ?) and access the list of available positions. Where social networking features kick in is in the display of your degree of connection on LinkedIn to the poster of the ad (1 if you are directly connected, 2 if one person connects you and the poster through the network, etc.) and how many people have endorsed that person on the service. The whole idea is obviously to use your personal network to due diligence the company, the team and the person hiring, as well as find ways to get to them through your connections.

The detailed view of a position also mentions how many people in your network work for that company, and whether the person posting and yourself have one or more LinkedIn Groups in common.

Did I mention that posting jobs was free during the preview ? Definitely worth trying: over 360 positions have been posted in the first 4 hours, from small to very large public companies - and it is Sunday. The combination of trusted referrals and due diligence, and what I would expect to be a competitive pricing (though I don't have any specific information), should make this service very relevant a number of positions.

Introducing 4 new members

Eric Seulliet

Eric is CEO of E-Mergences, a network-based consultancy specialized in responsible foresight and innovation. E-Mergences
assists corporations in conceiving and creating the products and services of
tomorrow.
E-Mergences has recently launched its blog
and is also gathering - through its interactive portal - a community of people interested in such fields as foresight and innovation,
viewed through a "sustainable development " perspective. Eric is also the
co-author of a book "Fabriquer le futur", soon to be released (Village Mondial - january 2005)

Eric blogs daily at http://e-mergences.blogspirit.com

Expanding Connections Through Blogging

One of the benefits of corporate blogging that is not often discussed is all the new people you meet just by keeping your corporate blog updated. These people come from two different avenues. They either read a blog post and comment or e-mail you directly or you are reading their blog and something strikes a cord which motivates you to comment or e-mail them. The trick to really getting the most benefit from this initial contact is to start and then maintain a dialog with this new connection.

What has been fascinating to me is that when I e-mail or comment on someone's blog I often get an almost immediate direct mail back. Additionally given that I am commenting on a specific subject we are already well into a discussion by the time the second or third e-mail is shared.   

Has anyone else experienced this?

CEOs, can you escape blogging ?

From Fortune's 10 january issues, a special report on 10 Tech Trends to Watch in 2005 . I've been selecting quotes only to get a collection of, could we say, "blogging trends".

First topic of this ten tech trends series: "Freewheeling bloggers can boost your product—or destroy it. Either way, they've become a force business can't afford to ignore." An article by David Kirkpatrick and Daniel Roth

The quotes:

"Blogs are challenging the media and changing how people in advertising, marketing, and public relations do their jobs."
Says Richard Edelman, CEO of Edelman Public Relations: "Now you've got to pitch the bloggers too. You can't just pitch to conventional media."

Says Jeff Jarvis, author of the blog BuzzMachine, and president and creative director of newspaper publisher Advance Publications' Internet division: "There should be someone at every company whose job is to put into Google and blog search engines the name of the company or the brand, followed by the word 'sucks,' just to see what customers are saying."

"If you fudge or lie on a blog, you are biting the karmic weenie," says Steve Hayden, vice chairman of advertising giant Ogilvy & Mather, which creates blogs for clients. "The negative reaction will be so great that, whatever your intention was, it will be overwhelmed and crushed like a bug. You're fighting with very powerful forces because it's real people's opinions."

Says Bill Gates, who claims he'd like to start a blog but doesn't have the time: "As blogging software gets easier to use, the boundaries between, say, writing e-mail and writing a blog will start to blur. This will fundamentally change how we document our lives."

Says Barak Berkowitz, [CEO of Six APart]: "When everybody has a tool for talking to the rest of the world, you can't hide from your mistakes. You have to face them. Once you commit to an open dialogue, you can't stop. And it's painful."

What are your 2 phrases on blogging ? Your 20 words ?