USC Marshall School -- Top Of The Blog!

Today I received wonderful news -- USC Marshall School of Business, Center for Management Communication, are crafting an upcoming course in Communications Management that will cover online communities and blogging for business!

Also, IPT hosted an open house tonight on "Relevance of Technology to Careers in Business". Although I was unable to attend, I look forward to hearing the outcome of this event.

By recognizing the impact of technology in business and therefore in the classroom, and by tailoring courses accordingly, the Marshall School of Business will prepare students to meet opportune moments with confidence and success.

Dr. Sandra Chrystal from USC's Center for Management Communication is one of the earliest pioneers in the field of blogging, wikis, podcasting, and PRS technology to enhance student learning.

On Tuesday, I presented corporate blogging and the use of my blog to Dr. Sandra Chrystal's Advanced Business Writing classes. Students gave valuable contributions to the discussion -- many of which can be viewed in the comments section of the post: "Non-Traditional Business Communications -- The Blog" posted 3/14/06.

We reviewed a number of the corporate blogs listed in the blogroll of my site -- such as Randy Baseler's Boeing Blog, Ted Leonis of Aol's Blog, and the GM Fastlane Blog -- this exercise proved most useful in identifying differences between the corporate blogs.

But I have specifically focused on Bob Sutor's blog (Bob Sutor is Vice President of Standards and Open Source at IBM) for a number of reasons:

1. Bob Sutor uses his personal voice
2. He discusses business issues and also personal tales in an appropriate manner for his position
3. His writing style is professional yet relaxed enough for comfortable reading
4. The layout of his site is easy to follow and his entries make sense even to someone from a non-tech background
5. He links to his earlier personal blog sites and this shows his interests, his growth as a human being, and the evolution of his use of the blog as a communications tool -- for personal and for professional use
6. As a reader, you feel a connection with Bob Sutor and therefore with IBM -- this blog is highly effective.
   

Corporate blogs -- their various uses, their styles of writing, their networks, their presentation of the corporation's culture, and the executives personal voice -- is such an enriching and unique mechanism for student learning.

Students can discover and compare corporations through this medium and either determine a suitable fit for career objectives, or prepare projects in line with a specific corporation's interest. The corporate blogosphere platform presents an ocean that students can dive into and learn from.

Because it's a new medium, even corporations are testing the waters. Some more hesitant than others. Corporate blogging is learning in evolution -- for business, for schools, for faculty, and for students.

Here are some tips to get started:

1. Take time to research our doubts about blogging -- is what stops us recognizing the value to a business blog legitimate?
2. Speak with a blogger about corporate blogging
   
3. Determine our blogging objective -- what will the blog represent/what is its use?
4. Research, get help, decide on the engine (e.g. Blogger/Typepad) and on the look/layout
5. Take the time to set it up and consider preferences such as comment moderation
6. Solicit feedback on the initial blog layout and function
   
7. Update the blog at least once a week with posts relevant to the blog objective/use
8. Respond as much as possible to comments or feedback on the blog
9. Copy and paste your template (html) in a Word Document in case something happens to your blog
10. Interact with other bloggers with blogs relevant to your objective by commenting on their posts and linking to their sites
    

Go For It!

Thank you, Bob Sutor -- A dozen recommendations for corporate bloggers!

(Click on picture to enlarge)

Bob Sutor -- Vice President for Standards and Open Source at IBM -- answered my question:

What constitutes an effective corporate blog?

He says, "In no particular order, here are a dozen recommendations to consider if you plan to do a corporate blog":

Decide beforehand how interactive you want the blog to be.

Some people assert that you don't have a blog if you don't have comments turned on and have active conversations. I don't subscribe to this at all. A blog is the product of the author and it can be one directional or it be very interactive. There are no rules here. Blog spam has complicated this quite a bit and while there are a number of schemes for fighting it, it is still a lot of work to do so.

When you write, do so in a style that sounds like a real person might say the words.

Some people get very formal and stiff when they write. While again there are no real rules here, if you read your work out loud and it sounds unnatural, I think you might want to rework it.

Even if you work in Marketing, don't sound like you are writing marketing copy.

It's just fine to talk about your products and why you think they're great, but I don't like reading ads that are disguised as blogs. That's one thing I noted when I went back and looked at some my early blog entries - I should have done a better job of talking about the products and why they did what they did and why we decided to make them that way, rather than sounding so promotional. Luckily I didn't do it all the time, but a couple of entries made me cringe a bit. I left them in there, though.

Even if you work in Communications, don't write like your entry is part of a press release.

I think this is obvious but it also relates to the point before last: quotes in press releases should sound like people rather than robots said the words. Conversely, blogs about what you do as a Communications person and how you shape stories can be quite interesting if you personalize them.

Allow some glimpses of your personal life to show through.

I think this just makes things more interesting. It's impossble to fully separate your work life from your personal life, so don't do so in your blog. You might want to check with your family before you publish certain things about them but I've learned that children, particularly younger children, like to see themselves mentioned. Of course, be smart about the details you make public. Consider including some photos from your personal activities in your blog.

If you are angry, wait a while before you publish an entry or at least run it by a couple of other people first.

Possible people to use for this purpose: your spouse, someone in Communications, someone in Legal, someone in Government Programs, your VC, someone more technical than you, and your boss.

When you talk about competitors, do so with care and intentionally.

That is, know what you are doing if you are going to contrast your activities with those of others in the business. This is a good way to make your blog interactive!

If you talk about customers and partners, only say good things about them.

If you can't, don't.

Link to the writings of others if you hope to have others link to you.

Demonstrate that you don't have all the brilliant ideas in the blogosphere because, trust me, you don't.

Keep your politics out of your corporate blog.

This is tough for me sometimes, though I think I have mostly succeeded. That said, since I point you to my personal blog and website, if you go there you can probably figure out on which side of the aisle I sit. In the same way, if you know me personally, you know where I stand. There is a line that you usually don't cross in business and your company may have some formal rules about this. Keep this in mind when you write.

Don't be afraid to go back and correct yourself if it is necessary.

This means facts, typos, spelling, and grammar. Blog entries can live on in excerpts and web caches, so if you publish something you should assume it will be around for a long time. Nevertheless, if you need to fix the original, do so. When appropriate, note that you've made a change. Use the blog as an exercise in improving your writing. Once you've been doing it for a while, go back and look at the old entries and consider how you would now have written those pieces.

Write your own blog.

Some corporate blogs are ghost-written by others, but I think it's pretty obvious when this is going on. It's just fine to publish that content as a series of thought pieces coming from the organization, but don't pass them off as personal entries.

(Copy and paste URL -- long links are problematic at this time in Blogger)

http://www-03.ibm.com/developerworks/
blogs/page/BobSutor?entry=a_dozen_
recommendations_for_corporate#comments

Business Week MBABlog -- "Teaching Ethics in Business Schools"

(Click to enlarge picture)

To quote Steve Shu:

"But I think in my discussions with the b-school professors, I think the position I hold (which is not so optimistic about teaching ethics in the business schools) is a minority position. The general consensus seemed to be that ethics should be taught more actively in business schools. That leaders need to have such skills" [http://steveshu21pub.mbablogs.businessweek.com
/weblogEntry/1444m0w9utpyc.htm].

Steve's position is that although he is for ethics, he doesn't think people in their mid-20's to late 30's can be taught ethics.

Ethics Cases In Point:

USC's Marshall School of Business, Center for Management Communication, offers an excellent special interest (previously BUAD 499) "Ethics, Independent Research, and Public Communications" class. Students (in their mid-20's to 30's) actually partake in real-life ethics cases to learn how to recognize specific ethical dilemmas and to seek solutions to these real-life ethical problems.

My response to you, Steve, is that irrespective of age, it depends on what is important and of interest to you.

Although ethics is debatable in perspective, business students can and should learn strategies to identify and deal with ethical issues in the workplace.

If employees (post-undergraduate and post-graduate) face ethical dilemmas and cannot recognize them or identify strategies and solutions to resolve the issues through social responsible means, and if Enron and Worldcomm executives are sentenced for legal and ethical violations -- then there clearly is a need for ethics training on the undergraduate and graduate level.

Ethics is a foundation on which to build corporate goals that includes corporate policy/governance/responsibility. Students should learn and build on that foundation.

Professional / Corporate Blog Training Need

The blog is a legitimate business communications tool that impacts our current social computing environment. Corporations need qualified professionals that can recognize challenges in this evolving environment, that can support corporate blogging needs through this transition, and that can successfully communicate corporate goals via the creation of an effective online presence -- the corporate blog.

Corporations use blogs as a platform to present and project a specific business goal -- internal, external, or both -- to generate on-going dialogue between businesses, employees, customers, and the general public.

Internal blogs serve internal corporate purposes, such as knowledge management, employee motivation strategies, or simply to reduce email. IBM's DeveloperWorks Blogs and Hewlett Packard Blogs are examples of corporate blogs used for internal purposes.

External blogs serve external corporate purposes, such as promotion of products or services. The Club Siemens blog is an example of such a corporate purpose. The corporate blog may also be used as a "press" platform to make announcements to businesses, customers, and the public about partnerships or organizational change.

Corporate blogging is a means for corporations to create a presence in the online community. But their success depends on their bloggers and their management of corporate blogs. Because few educational institutes actually train students to blog appropriately, effectively, and in a socially responsible manner, corporations rely on employees or independent-type contractors to meet their needs. Microsoft's hiring of Robert Scoble as an "Evangelist" is an example.

Corporate executives that blog have difficulty keeping their blogs current and responding to streams of questions and comments because they need to focus on other business objectives. Two particular executives have mentioned this:
1. Mohammed Amin of PriceWaterhouseCoopers wishes to blog weekly but is only managing fornightly posts.
2. AOL's Ted Leonis mentions having a flood of email originating from his blog to respond to.

Clearly, a niche market exists for professionally trained bloggers. Bloggers that can identify with specific corporate goals (internal or external) and tailor their blogging prowess to present those corporate goals via the corporate blog platform.

If business schools are not preparing business students to use the blog as a legitimate business communication tool, then corporations rely on training their own employees or contract with independent companies for these services.

Today -- at USC's Experimental Learning Lab (ELC) -- a team of students from BUAD 307 pitched a BizBlogRecruitment marketing plan to promote the services of a business blog recruitment [training and consultancy] company. The target audience being corporations that blog, those that plan to blog, and those not blogging. Included in the target audience are professional writers and bloggers. Here is the introductory slide:

Our goal through this exercise is to show corporations that accepting and adapting to change, such as creating a tailored corporate blog, empowers them to maintain a competitive edge and connect with powerful online communities.

Although, as a team, we developed a marketing mix and plan for this service, we -- as business students -- have no formal classes in corporate/business blogging as a legitimate business communications tool on offer at our school.

As corporations need to recognize the changes in the social computing evironment and evolve their operations accordingly so that the organization and employees are prepared for interactions within the online environment. Similarly, business schools need to recognize the changes in the social computing environment and evolve their courses accordingly so that business students are prepared for the post-college online environment and developing business opportunities.

Steps for CEO's to earn a good reputation with bloggers

Andy Sernovitz, CEO of Word Of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA), suggests five steps CEO's can follow to earn a good reputation with bloggers at this link:[http://www.imediaconnection.com/content/7780.asp].

The Five Steps:

1. Follow the conversation
2. Participate
3. Show that you are listening
4. Convert critics when you can
5. Write for the record

Sernovitz addresses how CEO's can reduce the confusion on whether to "Talk to them [bloggers], ignore them, treat them as press, treat them as customers, do your own blog, comment on their blog" with the following advice:

* The last word counts most
* Recent posts get indexed
* Everything lasts forever on Google

And what this means for CEO's is that:

* You'll never be able to control the blogosphere conversation
* You'll never be able to manage your own blog coverage like you could with the press
* You should respond participate (not plant and initiate), earn respect, and tell your story
* Let your views be heard and end the dialogue on a positive note
* Let your own words speak for themselves, do not try to manage what other people say
* Become part of the online community

Secret of Blog Relations = Customer Service

"It's working with a vocal group of individuals who each have their own particular concerns and needs. It's looking at situations, addressing them, and getting them fixed however you can", says Sernovitz.

So CEO's need to:

1. Treat bloggers like important customers
2. Earn their respect through service and respect
3. Use metrics to track positive and negative comments -- how quickly you respond to concerns
4. Look at the percentage of issues resolved successfully and for ways to improve the resolution rate

The conclusion says Sernovitz, "So if you want a good rep [reputation] in the blogosphere, you need to be good."

BE GOOD!

Biz Blog Review recognized by IBM!

(Click on picture to enlarge)

Bob Sutor, Vice President of Standards and Open Source at IBM, mentions Biz Blog Review on his site:

http://www-03.ibm.com/developerworks/blogs/
page/BobSutor?entry=business_and_blogs

http://www.sutor.com/newsite/blog-open/?p=246

"I just came across this blog and haven't had time to read it in depth, but it looks like it might have some good content: "Biz Blog Review", says Bob Sutor.

Thank you, Bob! I look forward to your inputs on this blog and what you think constitutes an effective corporate blog.

Steve Rubel says "Read the Freakin' Blogosphere"!

What does Steve mean?

It means that "the change or die mantra is the anthem of the Internet age, like it or not"
[http://www.micropersuasion.com/2006/03/read_the_freaki.html].

So the Blogosphere is ranting change -- what change?

Social computing as discussed in the forward-thinking Forrester Report, according to Steve, is revolutionizing old media into new channels, technology, and metrics.

Corporate blogging is one of those new media channels.

You can read more about Social Computing on the iMediaConnection site at this link:
[http://www.imediaconnection.com/content/8765.asp]

Why is corporate blogging necessary?

Corporations will need to prepare and engage in social computing as an asset, if not -- they will lose the competitive edge in promoting/selling/marketing their products and services. Corporate blogging is a means of maintaining and driving that edge.

Take Steve's advice: "Today the “manual” is living. It's the blogosphere. Read it and stay curious. Don't be complacent. "

Writing Advice from Brad Berens -- Executive Editor of iMediaConnection, Inc.

About two weeks ago, I started an online editorial internship with iMediaConnection, Inc. What a wonderful learning experience! I recommend an internship with this company.

iMedia was acquired on 26 September 2005 by ad:tech expositions -- a division of DMG World Media -- and "the leading event organizer for global interactive marketing conferences and expositions" [http://www.imediaconnection.com/content/6833.asp].

Brad Berens -- Executive Editor of iMediaConnection, Inc. -- gave me advice for online writing (some of which he also spoke about at USC's Undergraduate Writing Competition on 1 March 2006). Two main points include:

• make the piece friendly
• address specific questions

According to Brad, "The online reader is in a HURRY and needs the writer to do a lot of the heavy cognitive lifting" (Email: "Edits requested" -- 17 March 2006).

Heavy prose threatens to lose the reader and puts unnecessary burden on the impatient online reader.

With Brad's writing guidance and with the supervision of Roger Park -- News Editor of iMediaConnection -- I have worked on three news articles to date that can be read at the following links:

Visiongain Mobile Advertising Report [http://www.imediaconnection.com/news/8696.asp]

FX, MSN "Black.White." Partnership [http://www.imediaconnection.com/news/8654.asp]

eMarketer: France Leads in Connectivity [http://www.imediaconnection.com/news/8592.asp]

My Blog Is Locked - Was Locked!

Blogger.com locked my blog on Wednesday morning - March 8, 2006 - just when I attempted to post a discussion about Internet2. I even deleted the draft on Internet2 to see if I could continue posting without success.

Even though I have "clicked here" and followed the instructions to have my blog unlisted as a Spam Blog so that I can post again, Blogger.com have not unlocked it. In fact, in 8 days time, my blog could be deleted -- according to Blogger.com.

I received an email from Blogger Support yesterday saying that that my blog is now unlocked. Here is the email:

Re: [#411369] Non-spam review and verification request: http://bizblogreview.blogspot.com
Mar 9 (20 hours ago)

Hello,
Your blog has been reviewed, verified, and whitelisted so that it will nolonger appear as potential spam. If you sign out of Blogger and sign backin again, you should be able to post as normal. Thanks for your patience,and we apologize for any inconvenience this has caused.
Sincerely, Blogger Support

Since I am posting this draft on Friday March 10, 2006 at 9:00 am - it is clear that I still cannot publish and my blog is still locked. Click on the picture above to enlarge and view.

I have emailed and emailed Blogger Support too - time is running out Blogger.com...

THIS POST WAS ORIGINALLY A DRAFT AND AT 11:47 AM MARCH 10 - Biz Blog Review is unlocked! Thank you Blogger.com (and anyone else who helped!).

What Net is next - Internet2?

We use the Internet as we subjectively know it every day. To Internet2 minds, we are using Internet1. And what does this mean?

Internet2 is pioneered by 200 plus universities working in conjunction with industry professionals and government to develop and implement network applications and technologies for research and higher education. Internet2 participants aim at "accelerating the creation of tomorrow's internet" [http://www.internet2.edu/].

They are creating a "new" Internet or otherwise put - they are "evolving" Internet-use from ambiguous mass-use to a centered and measured system of use that efficiently, effectively, and credibly serves the needs of Internet users.

Internet2 initiatives include:

Arts and Humanities - "remote interactive media events" through Internet2 networks.

Digital Video - "development consortia to gather and disseminate information about leading edge digital video activities and technologies."

Distributed Storage - "The Internet2 Distributed Storage Initiative project is a replicated hosting platform for Internet content and services. Content is distributed at the network edge, improving latency and reducing bandwidth consumption. Content is gathered into channels that are then published to a URL."

End-to-End Performance - sponsored Joint Tech Workshops FiberCo - "Internet2 has established the National Research and Education Fiber Company (FiberCo) to support regional fiber optical networking initiatives dedicated to research and higher education."

Health Sciences -"The Internet2 Health Sciences Initiative supports and facilitates the use of advanced networking applications in clinical practice, medical and related biological research, education, and health awareness."

HOPI - "...the HOPI project leverages advances in optical networking technologies to examine and explore revolutionary network architectures."

K20 - "The National Internet2 K20 Initiative brings together Internet2 member institutions and innovators from primary and secondary schools, colleges and universities, libraries, and museums to extend new technologies, applications, middleware, and content to all educational sectors, as quickly and connectedly as possible."

The Internet2 Commons - Offers remote collaboration services.

Watching Internet2 unfold and evolve is something we should pay attention to.

Curious World of "Haptics" - It Impacts Our Lives

The sense of touch - Haptics - its use in technology, and its impact on business and marketing caught my attention recently. The Wikipedia defines "Haptics" as follows: "Haptic technology refers to technology which interfaces the user via the sense of touch. It's an emerging technology that promises to have wide reaching implications".

Haptic feedback was first used in aircraft with servo systems that operate control systems because the servo systems prevented experience of the control shake from aerodynamic buffeting necessary to warn pilots of dangerous flight conditions.

According to the Wikipedia, "To replace this missing cue, the angle of attack is measured, and when it approaches the critical stall point a "stick shaker" (an unbalanced rotating mass) is engaged, simulating the effects of a simpler control system" [http://www.wikipedia.org]. The use of haptics in aeronautics protects aircrafts in flight.

Not that many blogs exist on the topic - but I did find Aali's blog[http://blogs.msdn.com]: The Academic Architect. Aali's blog discribes research conducted in human-computer interaction and how the haptic user interface, "allowed the user to interact with 3D elements with a pen-like pointing device that also had a force-feedback mechanism". Pen-like pointing devices are not the only explorations into the world of haptic use.

According to an article titled: "Haptics: Gaming's New Sensation" by Dean Chang of Immersion, "Haptics technology can simulate these tactile and kinesthetic sensations so that computer interfaces not only look but also feel-in the literal sense of the word-like the interfaces we're accustomed to using in the real world [software calculator or buttons on a phone's dial pad] " (Chang). This article appears in Immersion's Press Room on their website [www.immersion.com].

Haptics can create a "real world sensation" for humans emersed in computer-use, for humans in need of therapeutic treatment, or for humans desiring entertainment. The use of haptics in product design is a whole new area being pioneered by companies such as Sensable Technologies for use in games, in virtual reality, in simulators, in teleoperators, in medicine, in sexual exploration, and in arts.

Haptics, like Radio Frequency Identification, exposes us to new dimensions in products and services.

Further information is obtainable from the following sources (links will appear in my blogroll):

* The Electronic Journal of Haptic Research
* The International Society For Haptics
* The Haptic Community Website

Keep an eye on the future of "Haptics" - it will change our lives for the better.

Points to Note: Why Mohammed Amin Blogs

As a corporate blogger, Mohammed Amin considers a number of points as follows:

• Corporate blogs are more spontaneous, more personal, and require fewer vetting-levels than corporate websites that require multiple levels of approval.
• Corporate bloggers, such as Mohammed Amin, are able to exhibit their personal style that is associated with the corporation (giving the corporation a "personal face").
• Corporate bloggers extend a welcome and showcase of their expertise to companies that seek their professional services.
• Referencing the corporate blog in the signature space of emails enables existing business contacts to visit the blog.
• A challenge is to have the time to create original posts on a regular basis.

PWC - Why Mohammed Amin Blogs

On February 19, 2006, I emailed Mr. Mohammed Amin - International Taxation Specialist at PriceWaterhouseCoopers - with some questions about his corporate blog. And he kindly took the time to answer these questions for me via email on February 21, 2006 - here they are:

QUESTION:

What prompted you to start your corporate blog?

ANSWER:

"I started this blog after a suggestion from my colleagues who are responsible for coordinating the tax element of our web presence for the UK firm. As you will be aware, our website, www. pwc.com is enormous, with sections for countries and lines of service. Due to the nature of the site, multiple levels of approval are needed before changes can be made."

QUESTION:

What are some of the benefits/drawbacks that you experience from having the blog?

ANSWER:

"The blog offered the scope to have something much more spontaneous and more personal. I appreciate that developments in a specialist tax field may not sound very personal, but everything is a matter of degree. The key message is that what goes on the site is determined and written entirely by me. However, as it is also PwC speaking, I still have the material vetted before posting by a colleague for technical accuracy, and by people from our corporate communications department to ensure that they are happy with me saying it. Despite this vetting, it still has a much more personal style than our main website."

"My goal was to extend my reach in disseminating our expertise on this subject. I think it has been achieved, in that many of the visitors to the blog do come from the type of companies that we want to reach. It is also worthwhile having my existing business contacts look at the blog, as it allows us to showcase our expertise. For that reason, I have the reference to the blog in the signature space of my emails.The main challenge I have faced is coming up with things to write about. I set out with the aim of one posting per week, but am probably averaging nearer one per fortnight."

Mohammed Amin MA FCA AMCT CTA (Fellow)
Read my Finance & Treasury blog at
http://pwc.blogs.com/mohammed_amin

A Window into My Marshall

Being a student at the Marshall School of Business at USC is a thrill! And it’s a thrill for a number of reasons: the Profs are treasures; the Courses are puzzles; and the Opportunities are oceans.

The Profs are treasures

Here’s a little about my current professors because each of them contribute to the expansion of my thoughts and how I apply my thoughts to this Independent Study on Corporate Blogs -

Professor Sandra Chrystal (Center for Management Communication):

• Is as passionate in teaching as the chocolate she loves
• Takes the mind beyond the most zealous yoga pose
• Offers opportunities where only dreams are thought to reside
• Empowers students through community realizations
• Steps on fear to for technology's sake
• Helps students find their own unique voice
• Guides student success beyond expectation
• Connects students to their personal purpose
• Provides local, national, and global encounters through projects, cases, competitions, publications, and presentations
• Infuses students with the ethics she lives and breathes

Professor Reginald Hubbard (Center for Management Communication):

• Impacts the mind powerfully in silence, in word, and in deed
• Guides the end to any identification crisis
• Awakens the mind to global thought
• Is humane, compassionate, empathetic, culturally in-tune and on time
• Expresses a rainbow intellect
• Leads students beyond the textbook stepping stone - across the river - ready to explore and discover what lies on its banks

Professor Rex Kovacevich (Marketing Department):

• Remember Dr. Snuggles’ Time Machine – all those devices? (Each lecture is an invention that houses the most intriguingly intelligent and funny moments)
• Transforms students' minds with wonder and sensation – just fab!
• Nurtures honest, hearty, and happy humans
• Never lets sleeping minds lie (wear sun glasses & don’t snore) nor lets critical thinking die

Professor Bert Steece (Advanced Statistics):

• Sensitive to student’s individual levels and needs
• Attentive, patient, and positively productive
• Repairs rusty regression and fills in the blanks
• Tolerates outlier questions and aptly answers them
• Is always available for office hours and loves candy (tootsie rolls)
• Teaches the meaning of learning and gives statistics a life
• Passionate about improving condition through inference (its catchy)
• Loves art! Always draws the picture.

Treasured Profs for all times

Professor Yolanda Kirk (Center for Management Communication):

• Is a strikingly sharp individual – intuitive and wise
• Fosters diversity in all its dimensions from cacti to the sea
• Instills the importance of strategy yet ever mindful of simplicity
• Puts opportunity in reach and gives the hand over the hurdle
• Teaches students how to write, write, write – right!
• Ignites the mind to explore beyond the word
• Strives for the best but remembers the rest
• Foregoes public credit for inner delight
• Gives all to her Marshall, mighty not small

Professor Steve Posner (Center for Management Communication):

• Directs and inspires experience through multi-colored and multi-purpose dimensions
• Transmits telepathic exuberance that inspires the mind to explore infinity
• Coaches and supports every student need
• Takes truth out of its sugar coated wrapping and tells it as it is - whatever the truth may be
• Flies to see students every week because he wants to not because he has to
• Bares and shares a contagious spirit to learn
• Validates students' ideas
• Is genuine and kind

More of the Marshall Window to follow ...

Why is corporate blogging relevant to business students?

Corporate blogs offer a world of advice on careers, on corporate culture and on corporate roles, but more importantly – on why blogs are relevant to students and on how to blog as a means of corporate communication.

Corporate blogging is relevant to business students because students’ personal blogs affect their professional lives; because corporate blogs provide a platform to observe, understand, and learn about corporate networking; and because corporate blogs are a current evolving business communications tool that students can use to learn how to write and communicate effectively in business.

Picture Source: Keep On Blogging! http://www.eff.org/

Conclusion: Corporate blogging is relevant to students

All these factors indicate that blogging is relevant to students to protect them from inappropriate blogging that may be used “against” rather than “for” them in the future, to improve their critical thinking and writing skills, and to help them learn to network with executives through blogs on an appropriate level, and to guide them in recognizing quality with opportunities that brighten their careers.

As students learn from reading and using styles of professional business writing on blogs, their business interactions will improve and be successful. Keeping up with changes in technology is also vital to student success as blogs evolve.

In learning corporate blog processes and observing the corporate blog evolution, business students will be able to contribute to corporate blog growth with qualified interpretation and recommendation. And business professionals will provide feedback to further improvement of business communication tools, such as the blog.

Corporate Blog Awareness – Relevant to Students

In light of the research about corporate blogs and the findings from studies, students also need to be aware of the following emerging issues in corporate blog-use and their participating role in these issues:

1. No set business communication standards exist for corporate blog-use, and as new corporate blogs are on the rise, this is a time where students can interact and give input on blogs focusing on establishing such standards.

2. Because the actual amount of corporate blogs in existence is unknown, a central registry of all existing and new corporate blogs is yet to be established. Students can play a role in encouraging corporations and companies to create such a registry for purposes such as networking, researching, and credibility.

3. Universities and colleges should provide educational courses about blogs as a business and non-business communications tool to make students aware of and to prepare students for changes in technology and its consequent impact on business communication.

4. Such considerations will help individuals and companies identify corporate blogs and also provide criteria against which to evaluate these blogs. An area of growth to watch is blog recruitment companies that will drive the creation of corporate blogs as professional business writers are on hand to serve corporate needs via blogs.

College students and professors should embrace blogs for learning because as technology evolves, so does learning inside and outside of the classroom for both professors and students alike. Here – on the blog – we (students, academia, and company professionals) learn what it means to blog from each other.

If you would like a full copy of this paper, please send an email to bizblogreview-at-gmail-dot-com.