I've realised why I've not been blogging here much of late. Initially, I thought it was because I was just plain busy - but that's not true. Busyness has never stopped me before. I think it's more that the journalism blogosphere is, for one reason or another, busy discussing things that aren't where my head is at right now.The major difference in my life over the past three months is that I've moved from a general evangelising role to a sleeves rolled up, hands on, working with individual markets and journalists role, and that means a lot of the issues I'm thinking about most are more, well, prosaic, that the theory arguments going on right now:
- How do you get journalists to work blogging into their daily routine?
- How do you provide them with the right tools in a managed corporate IT environment?
- How do you create time for experimentation online when costs - and people - are being cut?
- How do you deal with some of the management consequences of success?
- How can you move valuable internal experience around the business quickly?
- How can you expose more people internally to the best thinking outside the business?
I'm pleased to say that RBI is making good strides in all of these areas, but I do find it concerning that arguments we did to death a couple of years ago (paid versus free, bloggers versus journalists) are rearing their heads across the journo blogosphere again, just at the point where doing things is more important than talking about them.
Perhaps trying to include blogging as part of a work regime is the fundamental flaw.
Of the many journalists I know (all of whom are working harder than ever) most are totally averse to blogging.
However, they don't half find plenty of time for social networking on Twitter, Facebook, MySpace etc.
The secret to that frenzied activity? None of it is work-related.
Well, given that my job title is "Head of Blogging", I don't think I'll be abandoning the effort just yet.
However, the basic principle is right: blogging is just one way that journalists can start engaging with their audience and contacts online, and that the other tools you mention are part of it to.
Apart from MySpace, obviously, as that's dead in the water. ;-)
Adam, could you explain what you mean by "the management consequences of success"?
As for your first question, I think the key is to persuade journalists that blogging isn't an extra (and bottom-of-the-pile) responsibility, but something that can help them with their existing responsibilities.
For example, take a print columnist that has been asked also to blog. Instead of writing the column then writing a blog post, or (worse) writing the column then sticking it up on a blog verbatim, he could write a blog post on the issue he is thinking of basing his column around, get some feedback, and then use that as a basis for his column. He gets a better column, some good contacts and industry insight, *and* a blog post with a genuine purpose.
Or were you looking for something more insightful?
Adam, could you explain what you mean by "the management consequences of success"?
I was alluding to the fact that certain aspects of social media - especially commenting and discussion, don't actually scale very well. I did some work with one of our titles last week whose problem isn't encouraging interaction - it's how to manage the sheer volume they get, and how to try and improve the quality.