Digiwonder?

Living here in Washington, DC, I’m often reminded that we are still in a post 9/11 security mode. Bags are opened and checked at museums, I nearly always need to sign in, if not show my ID or even have an escort, when I go on downtown client meetings, and waist-high barricades prevent cars from driving or parking too close to important buildings and embassies. With the war in Iraq, continued Arab-Israeli strife, the recently thwarted Holland Tunnel bombing plots, at some level, we’re still all a tad jittery.

But in this post 9/11 world, one trend flying in the face of this buttoned-down, cautious existence is blogging. As physical barriers are constructed in our physical world, online barriers are tumbling down.

In Naked Conversations, former Microsoft blogger Robert Scoble and Shel Israel, who’s helped launch a myriad of software and hardware including PowerPoint and Sun Microsystem Workstations write about the power of blogs to tumble these barriers in business.

The take home message of the book: blogs allow for direct conversations between CEOs and customers, customers and developers, CEOs and staff, staff and fans, etc. And when allowed to flourish, these conversations build transparency, goodwill, and add an overall human side to the corporate entity.

More and more CEOs, PR people, developers, and leaders get this. But many still don’t. On the book’s blog, Shel Israel cites a Bulldog Reporter survey among Dallas members of the International Association of Business Communicators:

Despite warnings by an expert that we bloggers have become a “legitimate media target” for PR practitioners, a poll shows that IABC Dallas members think:

 

46 percent of respondents believe bloggers should be ignored, or managed by customer relations departments

42 percent say bloggers should be handled by media relations representatives

6 percent say neither of these departments should handle angry bloggers

6 percent say they don’t know

Looks like the work of Scoble and Israel to educate the masses remains unfinished.

In the book, the authors quote Betsy Aoki, who coordinated Microsoft’s bloggers, as saying blogs are the next logical step for businesses after the yellow pages and websites.

I can’t say I agree that the final step into blogging is so clearly logical or natural for businesses. The yellow pages and a website can offer fast, easy-to-find information such as store hours, policies, locations, etc. A blog is not designed for this. And I just find it hard to imagine that someday, all non-blogging plumbers won’t get by just fine.

But I do think many of the holdouts will come around to blogging as something they ought to do. When they do, I’m guessing that will be the time there will be a marked shift from the golden first days of blogging to the days when readers and customers have to look at blogs with a more discriminating eye. No doubt many late comers to blogging will tuck the task into the job descriptions of their PR and marketing teams. CEOs will be ghost-blogged and companies will try to sell via their blogs. Will there be infomercial blogs?

But wait, if there are blog-infomercials, they’ll be tracked by the infomercial blog and mentioned on infomercialscam.com. Ha! Take that!

In my mind, it really is remarkable how blogging has started fundamental shifts in how businesses are communicating out to the world, how journalists are tracking leads, or college kids are documenting the ups and downs of their escapades. It’s especially so in this world where in the physical realm we have so many barriers to such direct dialogue/access.
But what fascinates me is how this online no-barriers contact could spill back into the real world and usher shifts there too. Starting with Scoble. Looking for summer vacation plans? Robert Scoble has got some for you! Yes, he posts an open invitation on his blog to join he and his pals for an “off-the-grid” wilderness weekend in August. No conference fees, no badge needed, just show up. That is pretty radical. If blogging leads to that kind of openness, that is society changing stuff.