Captain's Blog - If You Want To Be A Leader, Blog

Excerpt from If You Want to Be A Leader, Blog:

'Many admiring commentators even PREFER blogs to web sites because of their INTERACTIVE ability and informal nature. Large companies are increasingly using blogs to stay in touch with their customers, particularly CEOs A good example of a CEO blog would be ‘Jonathan’s Blog’

Jonathan Schwartz puts it very well in the November 2005 issue of the Harvard Business Review:

“But it's riskier NOT to have a blog. Remember when, not long ago, CEOs would ask their assistants to print out their e-mails for them, and they'd dictate responses to be typewritten and sent via snail mail? Where are those leaders now? (The last of my contacts of that breed just retired.)" In ten years, most of us will communicate directly with customers, employees, and the broader business community through blogs.

For EXECUTIVES, having a blog is not going to be a matter of choice, any more than using e-mail is today. If you're not part of the conversation, others will speak on your behalf-and I'm not talking about your employees.” Full Article only by subscription to HBR.

So the decision whether to have or a web site or a blog is a ‘NO-BRAINER’ for me. As well as being cheap, cheerful and endlessly adaptable, blogs are beginning to get the RESPECT they deserve.

Newsletters (or e-zines) are still a great way to keep in touch even with just a small list of people – but they are subject to the vagaries and fashions of the Internet GATEKEEPERS. Until recently there was a joke that was ‘going the rounds’ amongst marketers that went something like this: ‘What do you get at the end of the year with a mailing list of 200,000?

Answer: 100,000. (Not such a ‘good’ joke, anymore.) I know, from personal experience (My newsletter is regularly read by 15,000 plus readers) that delivering e-newsletters, reliably, has become something of a nightmare. Even Alexandria K Brown, the e-Zine Queen, now has a BLOG!

When my newsletter was inadvertently ‘bounced’, by an ‘Abuse Team’, (average age: seventeen) for containing the word ‘Hair.’ I knew it was time to look at alternative ways of keeping in touch. Blogs are PERFECT for keeping in touch with your staff, colleagues and customers.

Known as 'Tom Peters Meets Reader's Digest', Margaret teaches five simple secrets of Business Blogging and Executive Coaching, that help people just like YOU - Master New Media & Stay Connected. Enjoy her monthly blog-letter - Career Coach http://www.careersnet.co.uk/career-change-free-prize-draw/ AND you could WIN a PRIZE!