This post is syndicated from the column I write in MarketingProfs and contains a summary of the panel I recently moderated at Blog World Expo with corporate bloggers from Dell, Yahoo!, Facebook and Kodak.

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Since my last post on corporate blogging here, a lot has changed. I’ve had a chance to practice many of the concepts I preached, as LinkedIn’s corporate blog editor. I’ve also had the acquaintance of other corporate bloggers whom I greatly respect. So, it was a thrill to be able to bring together four of my peers for a dream panel at Blog World Expo, which I moderated. The topic: 7 Habits of Highly Effective Business Bloggers.

The panel included my friends Lionel Menchaca from Dell, Nicki Dugan from Yahoo!, Carolyn Abram from Facebook and Thomas Hoehn from Kodak. We had great participation from our audience but I’d be remiss not to share our learnings and presentation with you.

Given below are the key lessons that we shared with the audience members.

The 7 Habits of highly effective business bloggers

1. Status: It’s a relationship and it’s complicated

Start a corporate blog only if you’re in it for the long haul. Every panelist described the genesis of their respective blog, it’s origins, and most importantly how the blog impacted the company’s relationship with the users. I also got them talking about some of the challenges and pitfalls associated with it.

2. Tell Honest, Current Stories

As Jack Welch described the one rule of corporate blogging: “Just be Authentic“. The only way to build credibility with your users is by toning down the PR speak and amping up the straight talk. We also went over some of the privacy issues that one has to deal with while running a company blog.

3. Know your limits

Another area that you must keep in mind (this is relevant more for Fortune 500 than Inc 500 companies) are the legal landmines you have to navigate. But remember, your legal team is there to help you. So, having them support you a 100% right from the start and drafting best practices is key to ensure success.

4. Make lemonade

Social Media jujitsu is what we called it (thanks to Groundswell for the inspiration). How do you take a seemingly negative situation - irate users; and turn that over to a positive. Nicki, Carolyn and Lionel shared some pretty inspirational stories that ranged from the Facebook News feed to Yahoo! TV. Key here is putting your users first and listening to them.

5. One size doesn’t fit all

As I’ve often said before; do not start a corporate blog unless you have a goal in mind. Given that different companies start a corporate blog for different purposes - some may use it to educate their users while some others for recruitment. Thus best practices are also going to vary from one example to the other.

The panelists got into a spirited discussion of whether comments are necessary for a blog and under what conditions. Does your company have a corporate blog? And, if so, do you allow comments? Feel free to share.

6. Learn as you go

On short notice, I threw out a question to the panel on the biggest lesson learned during their stewardship of their respective company blogs. Of course, they were all able to effortlessly answer the questions with many of their answers highlighting the improvisational nature of the job.

7. It’s not just words

And, finally a glimpse into the future. Ideas shared focused on the multimedia nature of the future. As you may notice many corporate blogs are increasingly stepping into social media (which by definition includes pictures - Flickr, video - YouTube, and the likes). What do you think does the future of corporate blogging hold?

The genesis for this theme arose from the fact that corporate blogging may be close to mainstream status within corporate America, but the adopters lack a sense of how to make it work effectively. Stats in point: Between 2007 and 2008, adoption of corporate blogging among the fastest growing companies in the world (Inc 500) has doubled, while their appreciation of it’s effectiveness is at less than 50%.

The above habits were culled from a brainstorming session that I had with Lionel, Nicki, Carolyn and Tom and borrowed extensively from our experiences at our respective companies. I’d like to take this opportunity to continue the discussion we started at Blog World Expo with you. If you’re a corporate blogger, feel free to share a best practice you’ve gathered along the way. If you’d like to become one or if you’d like to start a blog for your company, feel free to ask us a question you have on the topic.

Comments, Thoughts?

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A trip down memory lane. In November 2005, Harvard Business School outlined the benefits of corporate blogging in a Harvard Management Communication Letter:

…the school said blogs enable the brave few “to connect with customers online and advance corporate communications and marketing goals” and added that a well-written blog can boost a company’s credibility.

The letter is also said to have highlighted three tips on corporate blogging, which echoes many of our posts on corporate blogging best practices since then. These were HBS’ suggestions:

1. Blogs as crisis management tools

In the case of crisis – far from being a PR disaster – a blog can enable companies “to shape the conversation about it”, the article states.

2. Allow comments - positive and negative

Permit both positive and negative posts on your blog and reply to comments made on other blogs pertinent to your area of focus. Respond in a professional and businesslike way. If you don’t want to hear from your customers and critics in a public environment, don’t blog.

3. Blog often

And most importantly, the article tells companies to make a commitment to update the blog regularly once they have told the world they are doing a blog.

It’s interesting to see how far we’ve come since then but it’s still many months; maybe years, before corporate blogging becomes standard practice. How long before that happens?

Only time will tell. But rest assured; you’ll learn it first here!

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Note: You’re still reading my weekend series of posts that focus on my personal interests of productivity, music and movies. Feel free to check out my archives for posts on corporate blogging, social networking, community marketing & technology I love. Or, see you on Monday with more on the above topics.
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Given below are the 5 most recently played tracks on my iPhone. Here goes:

#1. Jon Brion. Strings that tie to you.

Jon Brion's Strings that tie to you

#2. Perry Como. Blue Room.

Perry Como's Blue Room

#3. Kanye West. Love Lockdown.

Kanye West's Love Lockdown

#4. Alice Smith. Dream.

Alice Smith's Dream

#5. Nina Simone. Wild is the Wind.

Nina Simone's Wild is the Wind

Feel free to share your most recently played tracks on your iPod in the comments section.

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Note: You’re still reading my weekend series of posts that focus on my personal interests of productivity, music and movies. Feel free to check out my archives for posts on corporate blogging, social networking, community marketing & technology I love. Or, see you on Monday with more on the above topics.
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The Genius of Charles Darwin is a three part television documentary, written and presented by evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, celebrating the life and ideas of Charles Darwin for the 150th anniversary of his “The Origin of Species” and his 200th birthday.

So, I’ve searched through Google’s video archives to embed all three parts of the documentary which originally aired on Channel 4. Each episode is roughly 45 minutes, but if you’re even mildly interested in topics of morality, evolution and philosophy in general, please do yourself a favor and watch it at leisure.

THE GENIUS OF CHARLES DARWIN

Part 1: Life, Darwin, and everything…

Part 2: The Fifth Ape

Part 3: God Strikes back

One of the goals of my blog, besides talking about my three favorite topics (corporate blogging, social networking and community marketing) is to also share my interests. The Technology I love category was started with that in mind. Along similar lines, I’ve decided to share snippets on my personal interests - productivity, music, & movies - over the weekends. I’ll try my best to refrain from philosophy and religion.

To start things off, I thought I’ll share these 10 commandments on improving your work efficiency. It was originally crafted by Swiss artists - Peter Fischli and David Weiss and I think it most closely resembles my work ethic. Of course, there is always room for improvement

Any work tips you’d like to share?

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Quick Update: Perfect timing. The Boy Genius Report just outed some pics of the second version of the Kindle. The form factor is definitely an improvement over the original, so those wanting to buy a Kindle may want to wait for a bit. Check out the post. (pics here)

Kindle vs. Kindle 2 (Source: Boy Genius Report)

Back to my original post.
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As readers of this blog know, I’ve been pretty outspoken in my feelings about the Kindle vs. iPhone debate in the past, going so far as saying: the future of reading is the iPhone, NOT the Kindle. My 2nd post on this topic written more than half a year later, gathered an evolved consensus on where that comparison between the iPhone and Kindle stood.

Original iPhone vs. Kindle comparison

And, it’s official now - the iPhone (despite being a music/browser/phone/app platform) has bested the Amazon’s Kindle at it’s own game - in sheer # of readers!

Stanza, a book reading app on the iPhone, is close to ~400K downloads at a current rate of ~5K downloads per day, while the Kindle is estimated to sell ~380K devices this year. And, let’s not get started on the # of iPhones sold as of date and the passionate following they have acquired.

But, since this is an apples and oranges comparison, let’s look at the major differences between the devices:

1. Price: While the Stanza is free if you already own the iPhone, the Kindle is twice as expensive (~$399) than the iPhone (~199)

2. Book Selection: Definitely the Kindle. It’s Amazon and they have the greatest selection of books on the planet.

3. Reading experience: I love reading on my iPhone. I’ve spent hours reading my Google Reader feeds, but Kindle is rumored to be easier on the eyes, thanks to E-Ink.

4. Battery Life: My biggest pet peeve with the iPhone is the battery life (particularly since it’s an essential utility in my life). It lasts for a day. The Kindle’s battery lasts for four days.

5. Connectivity: Again, the iPhone works flawlessly with Wi-Fi (spotty 3G networks hamper the 3G experience), and I’ve just the right apps to make even my Edge experience bearable. The Kindle: EV-DO.

As you can see, if you’re a voracious reader, the Kindle is your best bet - looks notwithstanding (although I think it’s a really expensive purchase). But, as the Forbes article pointed out:

Stanza users are a different type of reader from Kindle buyers, says Feedbooks Chief Executive Hadrien Gardeur. “Kindle appeals to heavy readers who spend far more time reading than anyone who uses an iPhone,” he says. “But I don’t think the mass market is ready to spend that kind of money. So they really don’t compete with one another at this point.”

But the iPhone definitely has the potential to become a huge hit among average book readers (going by the numbers) and I presume there are many like me - “1 book a month” readers. So, if Jobs can recreate the iTunes ecosystem for books, I’ll pay for the books. And, so will millions of other satisfied iPhone users.

Are you an iPhone or a Kindle? Or do you prefer reading books the old-fashioned way?

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As part of their 10 year anniversary, Google has resurrected a 2001 version of their search engine, which returns search results from way back when. Well, 7 years is definitely a lifetime in internet years. A bleak world without iPods, YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn or many other terms you take for granted today.

But, of course the most popular guilty pleasure of em all would be to google yourself both then and now. Of course, it’s fun.

Google "Mario Sundar" in 2001

But if I did a vanity search for my name on Google today, it perfectly defines my business card today by providing a snapshot of my thoughts on marketing (blog), resume (linkedin), pictures (flickr), thoughts (twitter), and more.

Google "Mario Sundar" in 2008

Read my earlier posts on how your name’s Google search is your business card and how it can help you find your dream job and more importantly define your online brand.

1. I told you so: Google Search = Identity

2. 5 steps to let your dream job find you

3. Virtual Resume = Google Vanity Search

What if you add LinkedIn to the mix?

4. The easiest way to control your online reputation

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The eternal question: Should CEOs blog? I thought I’d already covered this in earlier posts of mine (see lists below) when I concluded that it may be a great way to humanize a company esp. in moments of crisis when communication ought to be timely but wondered if it was worth a CEOs time.

Debbie Weil and Rohit Bhargava recently blogged about examples of two more CEOs, their blogging styles and their rationale for doing so:

1.Ted Leonis, Vice Chairman Emeritus - AOL (his blog):

Rohit shares Ted’s motivation to start his blog:

He was already successful, yet when he Googled his name, the first thing that came up was a relatively negative story from the Washington Post. His main first motivation to start his blog was to push that negative result down off the top ten results pages.

2. George Colony, Forrester CEO (his blog)

Debbie shares George’s take on the amount of time spent blogging. This is one of the main reasons I don’t advocate CEOs to not jump into full-time blogging.

“It only takes an hour a week,” he said but he finds himself thinking about writing the blog all week. “So it’s taking some of my mindshare.” So true. It’s one of the upsides as well as the downsides of maintaining a blog. You have to think. That’s hard.

My other posts on CEO blogging:

1. CEO blog apologies [Top 5]

2. When should CEOs blog? Ask Jeff Immelt.

3. Sun CEO sees ubiquity of corporate blogging

4. When and where should CEOs blog?

And, of course the legendary Top 10 CEO blogs/Top 10 CEO blogs ranked by Technorati. And, if you love numbers, here’s a bonus list - Top 10 CMO blogs.

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Oh, Apple! As a complete lover of all things Apple and a (once) frustrated MobileMe user, I’ve agonized over the MobileMe saga which started with their lame attempt at corporate blogging, continued with the MobileMe’s terrible performance, my personal experience using MobileMe and ended when they prematurely closed the “corporate blog” and redirected all questions to their forum - not a bad idea.

A couple of days ago, Dan Lyons (a.k.a FSJ) penned this post on a more recent post (ostensibly from an Apple employee) titled “Why we fail and (will continue to fail)“. Dan writes:

A deep source at Apple assures me that this blogger is indeed a MobileMe person, and the big failure she’s talking about is the MobileMe launch, though she never actually says so in her blog. It’s worth noting that she’s not really apologizing for MobileMe’s suckage. Instead, she’s saying that fuck-ups are the nature of corporate America. Also worth noting is the headline: “Why we fail (and will continue to fail).” That’s not exactly confidence-inspiring. Money quote: “The predictable fallout ensued, with a dressing down by our CEO, followed by the usual finger pointing and finally ending in removal/demotion of some members of the senior management team. ”

hmm… interesting…

Many months ago, I started a (now defunct) series on “Technologists for Obama“. My goal was to feature prominent technologists from the Silicon Valley Area in their support of Obama as candidate for President.

Imagine my pleasant surprise when I stumbled across a post by good friend, Craig Newmark, on his blog featuring tech leaders supporting Obama and the reasons for their doing so. Nicely done!

In addition to Pierre Omidyar (founder of eBay), another must read post from an entrepreneur supporting Obama came from Internet pioneer Marc Andreessen (co-founder, Netscape & Ning).

As for keeping politics away from a blog, I think Marc said it best:

I’ve tried very hard to keep politics out of this blog — despite nearly overpowering impulses to the contrary — because there’s no reason to alienate people who don’t share my political views, as wrong-headed as those people may clearly be!

My other posts on Political marketing:

1. Do political leaders need community evangelists?

2. Political brand messaging - Obama on Change

3. Obama is a leader from Hope and Community