Corporate Blogging - Next Steps

Keating: Why do I stand up here? Anybody?
Charlie: To feel taller.
Keating: No! Thank you for playing, Mr. Dalton. I stand upon my desk to remind yourself that we must constantly look at things in a different way.

The movie, "Dead Poet's Society" says something that resonates so much with me. Sometimes you have to get out of the box and just explore whats around you. The blog seems to be steadying and growth seems to be minimal. From the start, I've been looking at other personal blogs that are prominent in Malaysia and corporate blogs around the globe that have set the benchmark on understanding how best we can grow the AirAsia blog. Its been testing and tricky.

Not all ideas such as twitter might work (although its the in thing of the moment) and it could be vice versa for all I know. So how does a corporate blog go from the startup. Once youve got a feature concept going, how do you decide what to add and what to do to grow the blog? Pretty heavy questions. I can't be putting in sensitive pictures such as personal blogs and theres a lot of sensitivity involved in blogging as a corporate instead of an individual voice.

Often the word 'paradigm shift' is used, I think its overused. Its not a change of mindset, or even a question of change. Its a question of being open and willing to be a human on the internet. The future will see more of our existence online, so what persona or character do we assume? Web2.0 will ensure online media is no longer a communications tool alone but a presence. We will begin to develop online personalities that mimick our realself and web2.0 will accelerate this and form the communities to come. Now, corporations, the multimillion dollar question is what are you going to do today?

We're pretty much treading new waters here and am in the midst of testing some new interactive ideas which should be on the blog soon. Tech support for the blog is sadly lacking but these are trying times. Will have to cope with whatever ammunition I have. the key is creativity and diversifying the resources the corporate blog has. No point adding new features if no ones knows about your blog or fully utilises the current facilities you have. At the same time, you have to change the mindsets of people about blogging and how it can actually make a company better instead of detracting from the bigger picture.

People have to understand that a blog is more than just an escapism or escape tool for bored staff. It ultimately has to evolve into an effective tool between the people you want to engage and later as an information and knowledge sharing platform. The tricky part is pulling everything together and at the same time making it interesting. William Shedd once said that, "A ship is safe in harbor, but that’s not what ships are for." A blog is more than just a dormant tool that people use to complain or for you to post information. It is a tool to bridge that gap between people and build a community. So should I be brave enough?

Many men go fishing all their lives not knowing it is not fish they are after.

Henry David Thoreau