More Curious Than Worried

Business Communication (pt 3): Two Examples of Corporate Blogs

This is part 3 of 3 in a series of blog posts talking about corporate use of blogs. It’s a way for me to get extra credit for my Business Communication course and add what is hopefully valuable content to the Internet.

This third and final part of my assignment asks me to research and identify two companies that are effectively using blogs to communicate with their employees or with their customers.

While looking through different blogs, the one constant I noticed in all good blogs is enthusiasm. The two blogs I’ve decided to highlight show great enthusiasm for their company.

Randy’s Journal, Boeing – http://boeingblogs.com/randy/

Randy’s Journal is a blog written by Randy Tinseth, Vice President of Marketing for Boeing. He posts a blog about twice a week, but he only posts about subjects that are relevant to Boeing’s newest planes. The site has a very simple layout with the a column to the right of the posts with a calendar to show when the latest blogs were posted, a search field and a welcome section with a link to a page that tells you about Randy. I cannot understate the importance of telling your readers about the author! People read blogs, not only because of the content, but also because of the people who write them. There is also sections with site navigation links, links to Boeing sites, links to aviation interests and a section to make subscribing to the blog easy.

Randy’s audience consists of prospective clients, current clients, others in the airline industry, as well as aviation enthusiasts. His conversational style appeals to the aviation enthusiasts, but is not too casual to worry clients and others in the industry. He doesn’t just talk about what is new and exciting at Boeing. He mentions his travels and makes the reader feel like they are traveling with him to the different Boeing marketing events. There are also pictures and/or video in every post. The pictures and video aren’t just the professional marketing images, they are also candid pictures of the author at the events. This makes the blog more personal, which makes it more interesting. Very few people would want to read his this blog if it was just a copy of Boeing’s press releases. His enthusiasm and writing style make this blog worth reading.

Comcast Voices, Comcast – http://blog.comcast.com/

Comcast Voices is a blog that allows Comcast employees to announce and talk about Comcast products and services as well as news that affects Comcast and their customers. The timing of the posts vary because it is authored by many different Comcast employees. The site has a simple navigation bar at the top with links to the blog’s home page, archives, about page, media gallery and help. The column to the right of the posts has a lot of information and is, understandably, a little cluttered. The color scheme of the site helps keep most of the reader’s focus on the actual blog postings though. At the top of the column is a link for customer and reader feedback. Below that is a link to Comcast’s customer support page and links to subscribe to the site. Following that is sections for featured media, and lists of authors, categories, key words, previous posts and other sites the reader may be interested in.There is also a gadget that shows the latest tweets by Comcast’s Twitter account which you can follow at http://twitter.com/ComcastCares.

One of the things I like best about this blog is that at the beginning of every post it shows the name of the author with a link to their page, the author’s title in the company and the topic that is being covered in the post. The author pages are written by the authors and have a short professional history as well as personal information and a picture. This is great because it makes it feel more personal! As a Comcast employee, this blog would be a great way to highlight products, issues and news that affects your department, your company and especially your customers. It’s also a great way to show your knowledge and enthusiasm for your job, which is never a bad thing for a supervisor to see. As a customer, this blog shows that Comcast is run by people and not just by policies. It’s also a great way to talk with Comcast employees about general issues. The blog does a good job at making sure customers know where to go if they have a specific problem with their account.

I found both of these blogs from a list on the Fortune 500 Blog Wiki on Socialtext.net. This wiki is a great resource listing blogs by Fortune 500 companies as well as reviews about those blogs.

Week in Review: March 24, 2009

It’s nice to finally get through a relatively normal week at the new house. And it’s REALLY nice to get this posted on time for the first time in 3 weeks.

Things I Think I Liked

• Had my birthday/St. Patrick’s Day party at our house. Lotsa fun and lotsa beer.
• Meeting some cool people on Twitter.
• I really want to see this: Badass cop car of the near-future.
• Ordered my new motherboard and processor for my desktop so I can geek out with friends better. Thanks Dan!
• My new neighbor, Mike, is a cool guy.
• Chevy started production of the new Camaro.
• Found Splinter Cell for the XBox. Now I can turn my XBox into XBMC …as soon as I find the cables for it.
• Flowers are starting to spring up in our backyard.

Things I Think I Didn’t Like

• WiFi should be a free service! You hear me Starbucks!!
• Ashlynn’s leg went all tingly Saturday morning, but was better by Monday so we couldn’t get the doc to look at it. So frustrating!
• Is there anyone who likes the new Facebook home page? I don’t.
• I had to struggle through 3 REALLY slow nights at work. Good for citizens, but boring as all hell for me.
• Spent at least 3 days updating my newly installed Windows XP. Installing Ubuntu has spoiled me.
• Dealing with dozens of towed vehicles at work due to greedy tow companies!
• Hearing about police officers getting killed hits home a lot more when I work with cops all the time.

Things I Think I Think

• As I get older I care more about having friends and family around for my birthday than gifts.
• I’m gonna have to do a stand-alone post about Twitter.
• People involved in social media really seem to enjoy talking about people involved in social media.

This Week Made Me Wonder…

• How many devices can I connect my phone to at once via Bluetooth? Right now I’m listening to a podcast on my phone with my Bluetooth headset and loading a podcast on my phone from my laptop via Bluetooth.
• Would Englewood let us set up a Twitter account for the police?
• It’s getting easier and easier to find stuff to post on this weekly blog. Are these posts getting to long?

Things to look forward to

• Hanging out with my half of the wedding party tomorrow night and getting measured for tuxes.
• Finding a furry, fluffy, feline friend for family fun. (This bullet was brought to you by the letter ‘F’)
• Installing my new motherboard and processor!

Emergency Alerts in On-Demand World

I’ve been thinking about the digital TV transition and why it’s a big deal. It’s just TV, right? It’s just entertainment! Why does the government care if the public can’t get their American Idol fix? The truth is, it doesn’t care about that. They’re concerned that the public won’t get their emergency alerts without their TVs.

The government, and especially us involved in public safety, have become dependent on people always having a TV or radio around. With so much on-demand content out there now, we can’t count on that anymore. More and more people are watching TV episodes online and listening to their iPods while driving. They’re not connected to radios or TVs constantly anymore. So how do we alert the public now?

Until it’s possible for public safety agencies to send messages (text messages, email alerts, etc) to people based on their location, it’s up to the public to seek out ways to get their information. Some ways to get this info:

• Twitter – Search for your local law enforcement/fire agencies on Twitter and you might be lucky enough to live in the boundaries of one of these progressive agencies.
• Check your agency’s website. Even some of the smallest agencies have their own websites and most have many ways to stay connected (email, RSS, text messaging, online reporting, etc.). I just found out my sheriff’s office is on Facebook! (Looks like they haven’t done much with it though.)
• Check your local news websites. They will probably have breaking news email alerts/text messaging/rss feeds.
• amberalert.gov - You can view current Amber Alerts and even sign up for mobile alerts on your cell phone.
• weather.gov - The National Weather Service is using RSS feeds as a supplement to their normal emergency alert notifications. You can find them here.

 I wonder if people will ever be comfortable with the government providing real-time location-based communications. Would that be too much Big Brother looking over your shoulder? Maybe public safety agencies could use services that are already out there like Google Latitude or Brightkite.