Weblogs as a Business Tool
Written by: Matt Langeman
Weblogs have received a lot of online press over the last few years, often focusing on the new culture created by communities of bloggers and the personal nature that most weblogs based upon. Most people still see weblogs as personal diaries boring entries that few people care to read. However, there are a few who see something more, and the numbers are increasing as companies such as Grove Networks and Macromedia begin to use weblogs for business purposes. Indeed, weblogs have many qualities that make them valuable for business purposes. This paper identifies seven characteristics of weblogs and discusses how these characteristics make weblogging a useful business tool for knowledge management, project management, and customer communication.
Seven characteristics of weblogs
1. Identity: A weblog becomes and expression of the owners identity. It becomes a document of the owner’s activities and thoughts which the owner can take pride in and visitors can learn from.
2. Decentralization: A weblogging community is inherently decentralized. Content is spread across multiple weblogs and linked using hypertext.
3. Quality: Quality content is brought forth though linking to interesting and useful information. More links to an entry implies higher quality or more useful information. Practical evidence of this can be seen by the search engine Google.
4. Archival: Weblogs archive information for later retrieval. Weblog entries are archived in chronological order, and categories can be used to further group entries. This is also enhanced by the ability to search the archives in the same way one searches the internet.
5. Speed: Weblogs are by definition frequently updated, and therefore are able to present fresh content in a timely manner. This increases the speed of information flow.
6. Simplicity: Creating your own weblog is easy. High quality, intuitive weblogging software is widely available for free or for a low cost. Once the software is set up, no technical knowledge is needed for posting content.
7. Culture: Weblogging encourages an open and sharing culture. Users are able to share ideas without losing ownership.
Knowledge Management
Knowledge management is a term frequently used by Information Systems (IS) managers that reflects the realization that human knowledge has become one of the most valuable assets of an organization. However, knowledge management has proven to be a difficult task for most IS managers. There is not a purely technical solution. “Effective knowledge management typically requires an appropriate combination of organizational, social, and managerial initiatives along with, in many cases, deployment of appropriate technology” (Marwick 2001). On the surface a large centralized database may seem like a good technological solution. However, will it be used? Does it support the social culture needed to foster the spread of knowledge. The spread of knowledge is really the goal of knowledge management. If fact, Robert Buckman, the man credited as the founder of knowledge management states that the term is a misnomer. “Since I have not figured out how to manage the knowledge that is in somebody's head, I have emphasised the concept of knowledge sharing to encourage its movement. That is why I think 'knowledge management' is somewhat of a misnomer” (Robb 2002). Furthermore he states that “It is this movement of knowledge that creates the value. It is movement in response to a need. That knowledge that moves in response to a need of the organisation is the valuable knowledge that you should capture for future reference. It is now explicit and it is useful to put it into a knowledge base” (Robb 2002). The benefits of weblogging technology as a knowledge management tool are divided into the following categories: social benefits, and organizational benefits.
Weblogs facilitate knowledge movement by fostering a sharing culture which maintains personal identities. As seen in the larger weblog community, the culture surrounding weblogs encourages sharing of knowledge. Each individual is able to express their thoughts in their own space. Weblogs become an expression of the individual’s identity, and a place for them to communicate their knowledge to others in a way that retains ownership. This idea of ownership is a key idea that makes weblogs different from most other forms of electronic communication including newsgroups and mailing lists (Paquet 2002). Because of this sense of ownership, people are more willing to share ideas, and are more conscious of the need for quality.
Weblogs provide a useful model of knowledge and assist in knowledge organization and transfer because of its decentralization, archival, and fostering of quality. The knowledge sought after in business can be categorized into tacit knowledge and explicit knowledge (Marwick 2001). Tacit knowledge is the knowledge inside people’s minds including ideas and experiences, while explicit knowledge is documented knowledge in the form of recorded material such as writings or videos. While a centralization for storing explicit knowledge may makes sense, it is harder if not impossible to model the tacit knowledge in a centralized way. Tacit knowledge is inherently distributed and weblogs provide a perfect model of this. A weblog is a recording of a person’s ideas and experiences. In this way it provides a means of converting tacit knowledge to explicit knowledge. Furthermore, because of the speed at which weblog content flows threw a community, tacit transfer is also encouraged in the form of online discussions. Archival of content is another crucial aspect that makes weblogging a useful tool for knowledge management. All content is retained in chronological order and in a searchable format. Content remains distributed across many weblogs; however a search engine can be used as a centralizing force when content needs to be found. Search technology has come a long way in terms of helping users find the content they want. The idea of quality content being found by the number of links it receives has been proven by Google to be effective. Weblogging reinforces the concept that the most useful and interesting content receives the most links.
Project Management
Project management is an area where numerous technical projects have emerged. While excellent products are available, many try to do too much and are overly expensive. A project weblog is an inexpensive solution that provides numerous benefits for project management. The benefits of weblogging technology as a project management tool can be divided into the following categories: social benefits, and organizational benefits.
A project weblogs provides an identity for the project and it members, while encouraging an open and sharing environment. In order for a team and thus a project to be successful, its member must have a shared purpose and undertake cooperative action (McNurlin 2002, pg 304). A weblog is a space in which a project’s purpose and policies can be clearly documented and discussed by its members. A sense of ownership is created as team members may contribute ideas and link to content they feel is useful (Bausch 2002). New and important material can be posted quickly and easily. If desired, a project’s weblog could also be made available for viewing by others in an organization who have an interest in knowing the status and activities of the project.
A project weblog provides searching and archiving capabilities make it a centralized place to store the documents and ideas of a project. Another critical aspect of a projects success is the storage, maintenance and retrieval of project documents and ideas. A weblog is an easy way to archive and maintain project content. Furthermore, search technology for web material makes retrieval much easier and faster than searching a file server. Thus a project weblog can become the authoritative source for project information.
Customer Communication
Information and technology is changing the culture we live in and the culture businesses operate in. Increasingly, in the new culture customers have come to expect more openness and communication from businesses. While this may or may not be directly related to IT, it is a trend that must be recognized by IS managers. A weblog can help a business with customer communication because of the identity it helps create and the speed at which it communicates information.
A weblog is a good way to create an identity for a product or the business as a whole. Most businesses are concerned with the image and identity they create for their customers. A corporate weblog is a place to communicate the goals and values of a business as well as activities that show how the company is progressing. A weblog can be a consistent centralized source for all of the public news and information about a company. Furthermore, weblogging software makes it easy for customer liaisons who are not familiar with technology to control the content of the website.
A weblog is a good way of keeping fresh content available for customers. Customers like to be kept up-to-date. However they do not like to feel like they are being bombarded with unwanted information. By keeping a weblog, a business can communicate fresh content to the people who are interested. One example of this is Macromedia’s resent use of weblogs to provide a forum for is new technology surrounding Flash and Shockwave. Tom Hale, vice president in charge of developer relations states that “our format [on Macromedia.com] just wouldn’t be as quick as a blog is. We do have a community section in there, but a blog is five sentences and 10 links… [people] like the format” (Manjoo 2003).
Summary
In conclusion, weblogs have many qualities that make them useful in businesses for project management, knowledge management, and customer communication. As people realize that weblogs can be more than diary entries, the use of weblogging in a business environment will increase. The technology may seem simple, but the uses for weblogs are very broad. It is not the complexity of technology but the creative application of technology that makes it useful.
Works Cited
Bausch, Haughey, and Hourihan. ‘Chapter 8: Using Blogs in Business’, http://www.blogroots.com/chapters.blog/id/4, August 2002, accessed February 20, 2003.
Manjoo, Farhad. ‘Flash: Blogging Goes Corporate’, http://wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,52380,00.html, accessed February 20, 2003.
Marwick, A. D. ‘Knowledge Management Technology’, http://researchweb.watson.ibm.com/journal/sj/404/marwick.html, June 2001, accessed February 22, 2003.
McNurlin and Sprague. Information Systems Mangement in Practice, Prentice-Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ, 2002.
Paquet, Sebastien. ‘Personal Knowledge Publishing and Its Uses in Research (1/2)’, http://www.knowledgeboard.com/cgi-bin/item.cgi?ap=1&id=96934, October 2002, accessed February 20, 2003.
Robb, John. ‘It’s KS, not KM’, http://jrobb.userland.com/stories/2002/07/19/itsKsNotKm.html, July 2002, accessed February 22, 2003.
Works Consulted
Foley, John. ‘Are You Blogging Yet?’, http://www.informationweek.com/story/IWK20020719S0001, July 2002, accessed February 20, 2003.
Hurst, Mark. ‘Are weblogs legitimate business tools? No’, http://www.nwfusion.com/columnists/2002/1104faceno.html, November 2002, accessed February 20, 2003.
Keaggy, Bill. ‘Are weblogs legitimate business tools? Yes’, http://www.nwfusion.com/columnists/2002/1104faceyes.html, November 2002, accessed February 20, 2003.
Paquet, Sebastien. ‘Personal Knowledge Publishing and Its Uses in Research (2/2)’, http://www.knowledgeboard.com/cgi-bin/item.cgi?ap=1&id=96935, October 2002, accessed February 20, 2003.
Wohl, Amy D. ‘Life On the Internet: Could Blogging Assist KM?’, http://www.wohl.com/wa0156.htm, August 2001, accessed February 22, 2003.