Alan Weiss Doesn’t ‘Get’ Blogging

I really enjoyed Alan Weiss’s presentation Friday – Except for his comments about blogging. It’s not the first time I’ve heard those words and they always come from someone who is not a blogger, has never blogged, and does not understand blogging’s potential. I have never heard anyone say, “I’ve been blogging regularly for two years and it’s a complete waste of time.”

Alan spoke of gaining an early reputation as a contrarian and while it occurred to me that perhaps he is doing just that, but from the tone of his voice when he said, “Blogs are worthless” and “Nobody reads them” I think he was being sincere. I guess this means that I’m going to have to assume the mantle of contrarian on this issue.

First, as for Alan’s “Nobody reads them” comment: Not only do CEOs and senior executives read blogs, many are blogging themselves. TheNewPR maintains a list of them. Alan mentioned Marriott and Hewlett Packard as some of his clients. He undoubtedly would be surprised to discover that J Willard Marriott Jr, CEO of Marriott International has a blog. So does Eric Kintz, VP of Global Marketing Strategy and Excellence for Hewlett-Packard.

In fact TheNewPR’s list contains 272 names of people in leadership positions of various organizations who blog. Some of them are:

• Rudi Fischer, CEO, Telekom Austria
• Sab Kanaujia, VP, NBC Digital Media Group
• Richard Charkin, Chief Executive, Macmillan Publishers Ltd
• Simon Waldman, Director of Digital Publishing, Guardian Newspapers
• Scott Anderson, Director of shared content, Tribune Publishing and Interactive
• Marc Babej, President, Reason Inc.
• Randy Baseler, VP of Marketing, Boeing Commercial Airplanes
• Carole Brown, Chair, Chicago Transit Board
• Colin Crawford, VP/Online, International Data Group
• Michael M. Crow, Arizona State University President
• Marc Cuban, HDNET & Dallas Mavericks
• Chad Dickerson, CTO, InfoWorld
• John Dragoon, Chief Marketing Officer, Novell
• Michael Dunn, VP, Hearst Interactive Media
• Jeff Jaffe, CTO, Novell
• Bob Lutz, Vice Chairman, General Motors Corporation
• Lisa Meyers Brown, VP for Marketing, American Cancer Society’s Eastern Division
• Justin Rattner, CTO, Intel
• Greg Papadopoulos, CTO, Sun Microsystems
• Bob Parsons, President, godaddy.com
• Michael Powell, Chairman, Federal Communications Commission
• Michael Pusateri, VP of Engineering, Disney ABC Cable Networks Group
• Joe Wikert, Vice President and Publisher, John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Professional/Trade division
• Steve Wilson, Senior Director of Global Web Communications, McDonald’s
• Hu Yoshida, VP and CTO, Hitachi Data Systems

Someday soon, Alan Weiss will be meeting with a large potential client. The decision-maker will hand Alan one of Hugh MacLeod’s Streetcards. Alan will stare at it blankly and flip it over and over in two hands as a question forms on his face. At that moment Alan will lose the client and not even know it.

Or perhaps between now and then he will ‘get it’ and – as he so often said Friday – he will marvel at how stupid he was just two weeks ago.

Comments

[Ted Szaniawski]

Hey ---

I was traveling and missed the Friday "event". I have also missed the thrill of blogging, but have not closed my mind to it --- I'm just slow to embrace "newer things".

Your comments are right on target . . . if we do close the door to things that are new to us and worse yet curse what is unknown to us we're doomed to live as we have always lived. It's sorta like forever treasuring the buggy-whip. Nice tool, but no longer essential.

Your comments make me all the more determined to "get with it" . . . maybe not right away, but, well soon. Sure as hell I'm not going to damn something I haven't experienced.

Thanks for your comments.

Ted

[Alan Weiss]

I'm sorry you're hurting so much. Several people sent me this entry, embarrassed by your comments after my pro bono speech. I said in that presentation that everyone is free to ignore me. At their level of the profession, however. blogging is not valuable marketing because their buyers don't read blogs. You ran up to me afterwards to protest this! I give my professional opinion, which you seem to resent because you disagree with it. Let's see how professional you are by printing this.

[Dave]

To the contrary Alan, I did not find your comments hurtful at all. Those of us engaged in blogging evangelism encounter similar comments all the time. I’m sorry that some of your colleagues found my comments embarrassing. In contrast, some of mine were very complimentary.

I stand by my reporting of your original quote which was "Nobody reads them." The fact that you are commenting here is, I believe, sufficient refutation. If you are instead clarifying and saying that "buyers don’t read blogs", I will grant you that the decisions of most purchasing agents are not influenced by the blogosphere. The actual decision-makers however, do read blogs. I think that’s irrefutable.

I can understand how – at your stage of your career – blogging may have marginal value to you personally as a marketing tool. Most consultants however are not in your enviable position. Done well, blogging can achieve for a consultant what even large firms with millions of marketing dollars cannot achieve.

Consider that Corporate America is increasingly populated by Generation X. The Gen X’ers don’t read the New York Times, Washington Post, or the Wall Street Journal. They get their information from social media. If you are not there then you don’t exist.

And your characterization of our dialog that day is not entirely accurate. As you left the podium to the rear of the room, I approached you, handed you my business card, and said, "I respectfully disagree with your comments about blogs." (and that is an exact quote)

You replied, "You’re free to disagree if you want."

Sensing that you were not interested in engaging in meaningful dialog on the subject, I politely replied, "And you are entitled to your opinion." And with that, I returned to my seat.

And finally in regards to seeing if I am professional enough to publish your comment: Of course I published it. That is what blogging is all about. In fact, I encourage you, Alan, to continue this dialog.

(This is an abbreviated version of my reply. The entire reply can be read on my own blog.)

[Lisa Koss]

This blogging territory is new for many of us…I am one of those beginner bloggers that supported from the get-go the idea for the Arizona Chapter of the Institute of Management Consultants. It is meant as a place to exchange ideas and offer support and advice on topics relating to the field and practice of professional management consulting.

The discussion above is one that allowed several of us on the IMC-AZ Board to engage in spirited conversation about the boundaries and protocols of blogging. Obviously, we want to encourage a diversity of thought and perspective, while being respectful to each other. We concluded that the format of the blog is to exchange ideas and concepts, not to air personal criticisms.

We will be posting a statement of the IMC-AZ blogging policy which will discourage questionable or inappropriate content or disrespectful opinions about people.

While we understand that the nature of blogs is that they be provocative and honest, guidelines for posting and discussion on the IMC-AZ blog foster a non-threatening environment for the exchange of ideas.

If you have any thoughts about what should – or should not – be included in such a policy, please feel free to write your thoughts here or to email me directly.