June 29, 2005
Taking It to the Streets
Posted by Kevin | Print This Article
Had a very interesting time this past Monday serving on a panel during the annual conference of the International Association of Business Communicators, organized by Debbie Weil. Got to meet Bill Betts of General Motors, home of the excellent Fastlane blog; and Paul Rosenfeld of Intuit, the evangelist behind the QuickBooks Online blog. We hit it off right away and enjoyed a good back-and-forth in what was, unfortunately, far too short a time to deal with all the questions we had from the audience (and for each other).
One thing I found particularly interesting: while there has always been a lot of talk about using blogs to “bypass” the mainstream media (MSM) and reach an audience directly, blogs can actually play a key role in reaching those very same establishment MSM types.
Bill pointed out that GM has discovered several journalists have quoted long passages directly from blog posts authored by vice chairman Bob Lutz (and yes, he writes them himself, usually on his BlackBerry) — when those same journalists might include only a brief excerpt from an official press release.
The conversational nature of a blog makes it seem more like a “discovery” than the latest quote pulled from a blowdried and vetted official statement. More “real.” And apparently, more likely to get quoted.
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