Monday, September 26, 2005

'Blogs'? What 'Blogs'?

In the context of corporate blogging, somebody was asking - Blogs just provide opinions, so why the big fuss…why read them? That is like questioning the value that people bring to the table! At the end of the day, Corporates run not just on hi-fi statistical surveys and studies but on opinions as well.

If the subject of discussion is ‘general’ internet blogs by people just wanting to rant and rave about nothing in particular…I don’t know if they’ll help in anyway. (But there are some internet blogs where one gets a lot of the material that one wants on a given topic)

But coming to the corporate scenario, blogs can make a huge difference even if they are not technical in nature. For example, if it is a team-member’s blog, the reader willing, the extent to which one can understand the blogger can be amazing. The catch is that the blogger ought to be honest and forthcoming. Trust, which is the foundation on which relationships are built – both professional as well as personal – is something that blogs can help create. Blogs can reveal the filters that the blogger wears while he looks at the world and can therefore bring out his original intentions – once again, provided the blogger is honest and forthcoming. Assuming that each of us is a good human being and most often than not, relationships go sour due to misunderstandings is where I come from. If the blog is a technical one and if you trust the blogger in some way or the other, it saves you the time that it takes people to run through varied sources of information and then form a vetted opinion. If you trust the blogger(s),that is.

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