Wednesday May 25, 2005

Reading Blogs

Writing an introduction to how to read blogs and then posting it on your blog is kind of like holding a seminar on mountain climbing on top of a mountain. But I think I will point a lot of people to this entry when I tell them how beneficial it is to read blogs. So if you are already an avid blog reader you might just want to skip over this posting.

I was in a staff meeting yesterday where we were talking about how to really understand the business needs of a group with whom we are doing a big project. A bunch of the people in the client group are bloggers and it was obvious to me that the people from my group who are doing the project are missing the bet if they don't read the blogs of the client group. There are lots of other good reason's to read blog too. If you want to understand Sun strategy. If you want to connect with other people in your discipline or in your area of interest both inside or outside of your company I can't think of a better thing to do than to start reading blogs.

I don't really understand why more people don't grasp how useful and enriching it can be. Again I'll say that if you are reading this then you probably already know the value of reading blogs but I know there really still is a whole world of people who just don't get what the big deal is.

I suspect that a primary reason is time. If you have a job and kids and a spouse and friends I know that at times you have to choose between doing the dishes and taking a shower and even reading your email ends up quite a ways down the priority list. So maybe you just don't have time. A lot of people considering reading blogs assume that to read blogs means going to each blog that you are interested in to see if there is anything new. But there is an easier way. That is where Bloglines or some other aggregator comes in. Bloglines allows you to look in one place to see if there is anything new on any blog you read. You create a Bloglines account and then start adding blogs to your blog roll. Then any time you want to see what's new on any blog you read you can just look in one place. You can also easily add a button to your browser that will automatically add a new blog to your blog roll.

If anyone reading this would like help setting bloglines up just let me know. I'd also be happy to recommend the top ten blogs I think you should read based on your interests. I'm sure I'll miss some but it will be a way to start. It goes without saying that the top ten is different for each person. I know that each of my friends and colleagues has different interests. Obviously I am in no way an expert on blogs and all that is out there but I am really passionate about this and I would be happy to help. Leave a comment on this blog or email me at marion dot vermazen at Sun dot com.

Monday May 16, 2005

Blogging as a Connection Tool

Every once in a while Pubsub turns up a blog that mentions me and quotes my blog. I just found this article and as always the link to my blog makes me sit up and smile. I guess it might be just an ego boost but I think it is more than that. It is the joy of starting a new conversation. I love conversations and I love meeting new people. I think it must be because they keep life interesting and new.

Anyway, Jon Froda in the E-mediator blog just wrote an article about corporate culture and blogging. He does a great job of articulating how blogging enhances multi-directional communications. Coincidentally I was already working on a posting on pretty much the same subject.

Scoble commented after reading some Sun employee blogs including Mary's about how corporate blogging is a great way to build bridges across organizations. His example was between Microsoft and Sun but it made me think about how it builds bridges within organizations. At a big company like Sun disparate groups never cross paths. Before blogs I don't think I knew anyone in a group like for example, Solaris engineering. Since I started blogging I have met several people virtually who I didn't know before I started blogging. I'd like to meet more of them face to face now. I like the way Scoble is always doing meet ups. My personal goal is to start meeting face to face the people who I've met blogging.

Thursday April 28, 2005

Essays, Blogs and Oracle Licenses

I recently discovered the essays of Paul Graham. I referred to his essayThe Submarine in my last posting. Another one of his essays that I just read and found extremely interesting and engaging was titled The Age of the Essay.

Graham's essay about essays is full of interesting ideas but I particularly liked his point that an essay is a train of thought, not, as we were taught in school a defense of a thesis. He says “ I'd much rather read an essay that went off in an unexpected but interesting direction than one that plodded dutifully along a prescribed course.” It seems to me that a lot of blog entries are in fact essays. Just as the best essays are interesting the best blog entries are interesting. Graham says that interesting means surprising. He says that if you are writing about things that you have thought about and a point was surprising to you then it will be interesting to the reader.

So, for example, in a town hall meeting with Scott McNealy last Monday McNealy said that because of the way Oracle prices their software it is possible for the Oracle licenses to cost a lot more than the Sun computers they run on. He quoted some very large and surprising numbers. I believe it was something like the machine costs $10,000 and the licenses cost $300,000. That was new to me and both interesting and thought provoking. Since then I've read similar information in Dave Brillhart's blog and in Keith Bierman's blog.

It is not a new idea that an essay or a blog should be a conversation but I like the idea that they should be the kind of electrifying conversations where ideas are flowing and my mind is being expanded and challenged. Graham ends his essay with suggestions for how to find surprising things to write about. I find it it inspiring.

Tuesday April 19, 2005

Blogs as Internal Marketing

Recently Coté blogged in response to my posting about the benefits of blogging. His posting was great. I sometimes say something and then someone else's reply will articulate in the perfect way what I meant but couldn't quite put into words. Coté hit the nail on the head. He said “ blogs are a supra-effective tool for internal marketing. And if you don't think that's important, you must work for the perfect company.”

Also in his posting Coté said that Brandon said, “The number of people who read a weblog matters much less than who reads a weblog.”. That is SO true. When I write for my blog I really try to think about who I am talking to. I know that one big segment of those who may read what I write is Sun internal people. I know that my blog is one effective way to engage support and resistance for, and to identify issues with a change for which we are trying to build acceptance. I do think my blog helped at least a little bit to build support and understanding for our recent transition of Sun from CDE to JDS.

Reading some of the links in Coté's posting I found his excellent summary of the issues with blogs that are for company internal use only. I've thought about doing an internal blog. Our CIO has one. It would mean I could discuss a few things I can't discuss here, but I like the broader audience for Blogs dot Sun dot Com and I don't have time for two blogs. Plus I like to focus on doing the best job I can here.

The other point that Coté makes is about how to advertise blogs. It would be interesting to know the percentage of Sun people who read Sun blogs. I bet it is less than 10%. There is a sizable population of people who, for lots of good reasons, will just never read blogs. When it comes to ways to increase readership it may just be that growth needs to be organic and word of mouth works best.

Monday April 11, 2005

Thanks and What I have learned

I'd like to add my thanks and congratulations to the BSC (blogs.sun.com) team who just won Sun's chairman's award for creating BSC. It got me thinking about all the benefits that for me have come from blogging. Since I started blogging last September I've learned a lot. Blogging at Sun has been an extraordinarily valuable experience. I've summarized some of my thoughts about blogging and its benefits in a lessons learned list.

• Blogging is a great communication opportunity. It is a great opportunity to start a conversation. Since I am doing Change acceptance for JDS and Solaris 10 within Sun, blogging has been a great opportunity to tell people inside and outside of Sun what we are doing and why we are doing it. Broadcast emails just don't do the trick. They often are too much marketing talk and they usually don't encourage feedback. But even if an all Sun email was written like a blog a blog still does a better job because of the conversational aspect and because people who read my blog have over time built up an understanding of who I am and how I operate so they don't hesitate to ask questions or even challenge what I say.

• Blogging builds community. I've probably met more Sun customers and Sun employees outside of my division in the 7 months I've been blogging than I did in the previous 7 years. And I've learned something from each of them. The community building aspects are amazing. From my perspective it is one of the best things about blogging.

• Blogging and reading blogs are a great learning tool. Presenting to customers has always been a fantastic learning opportunity for me, but blogs are even better. The give and take and the different blog perspectives have allowed me to learn a lot about Sun's strategy and products and I've become much more aware of what is going on in our industry. I think it works for me because it is like sitting in on a conversation with the people who are making the decisions and selling the products. The perspective is invaluable. And I've always believed that the best way to really learn something is to teach someone else about it.

• Writing a blog is not only a learning tool but it makes you a better communicator. You can't help but improve you ability to communicate about something if you are writing about it. And I believe that the regular discipline of writing a blog is bound to improve my written and verbal communication skills.

• Blogging has improved how I feel about Sun. Sun is a big company. One of the things I love about Sun is that most of the time I have worked here I have been able to feel that I was making a difference, that I what I do helps Sun to be successful. It is almost a small company feeling. As Sun has gotten bigger it has sometimes been hard to maintain that feeling. Blogging has made me feel more a part of the company and more aligned with our strategies. It has improved my morale.

• Strangely enough blogging has made me realize how many people don't read blogs. By writing a blog and receiving feedback I've communicated with a lot of people that I probably wouldn't have otherwise. But what is interesting is that seeing this has made me realize how many people we have not touched with our change acceptance and communications efforts. I need to remember that blog readers are just a segment of the community.

• You never know who is reading. One aspect of blogging that I am still grappling with is how much of my life to share on my blog. I know that the blogs I enjoy most are those where I get to know the writer. And I also believe that transparency is what builds trust and trust is important in blogging. But every time I write a blog entry I think about my audience, my family, my coworkers, my boss, Sun customers and my friends and I think about whether what I am saying is appropriate and whether leaving something out would be less than authentic.

• Blogging is intellectually challenging The mechanics of creating a blog have been a fun challenge. I've learned about CSS, Technorati, tags, RSS, etc, etc. The list is endless. And of course there is the challenge of the content. My mind is challenged whether I am reading about Building Solaris from Scratch or about traveling on the inland waterways of Britain

• Blogging is Fun! I don't have to analyze it to know that I am having great time! I'm hooked and I can't imagine ever stopping.

Wednesday February 09, 2005

Blog Comments

I don't read comments on other people's blogs as often as I probably should. There is no doubt that the conversation can be even more interesting than the initial blog. For an example look Jonathan's comment on this post of mine Another very interesting comment is what James said on yesterday's blog I'm curious how many people look at comments and what makes you click on the comments link. I guess in my case I do it when the blog was thought provoking.

Friday December 10, 2004

Blogging questions

It goes with out saying that a lot of people don't read blogs. If they do they probably read only one or two. When I email a link to a blog to friends or to my group I often get asked how I find the time to read blogs. I found a very good introduction about How to get into blogs at a blog called tecosystems. The whole idea is rather daunting to a lot of people. Even when you have figured out the basics there are still a lot of thing that are confusing. Here are some of the questions I am still noodling over.

What is Technorati? What do people use it for? I've created an acount and even have a link to it on my blog but I still haven't really figured it out. Oh and what are the little dialog baloons that I see on blogs like Tim Bray's?

Another question I have is - How do I publish blog entries from outside the Sun Network? I think I've found what I need in some of the Sun blogging documentation. I think I need to set up some blogging software that uses the blogger API, but I still need to figure out exactly how to do it.

A third question is - What is the best way is to keep track of specific blog entries that I might want to look at in the future? I'm thinking of putting links to some of them in my blog. For instance I might start a category called iWork tips and then just blog every time I find a link that is a good tip about how to do mobile work. I could do the same thing with SunRay at home comments. But there have to be other ways besides just bookmarking them all.

The last question for now is what is the best way to reply to comments? If I do it in line I'm never sure the person ever saw my reply. If I email a response everyone doesn't see it. Maybe the best thing to do is to do both. And when I comment how do I remember to go back and check for a reply? I commented on a Richard Edelman blog the other day and his reply is both in the blog and I got it in email. I wonder if that was automatic? By the way, how cool is that that I actually got an email from Richard Edelman!! (2004-12-10 17:59:45.0) Permalink Comments [5]

Wednesday December 08, 2004

Group Morale and Blogging

This is the only the second Edelman blog I've read. But again I read it and it got me thinking.... He said among other things that “Blogs are just one aspect of social networking, along with news groups and mailing lists. The biggest challenge for companies is not the technology, it is understanding the culture.” He was talking about a companies external interactions but I have been thinking about how this also applies within a company.

I bet you could draw a correlation between how many bloggers there are in an organization and the culture / morale of that organization. I am talking here about departments with in the organization. If people are talking about what they are doing and in fact are engaged enough to blog about it I think it is likely that the organization has an open culture and pretty good morale. If your department has no bloggers what does that say?

I've been thinking a lot about what happens to companies as they get bigger. When you are small it is easy to talk to anyone and ask them what is going on. Everyone can feel like they are a part of the success of the company. As you get bigger it is easy to get cut off. It isn't as easy to ask someone what is going on. Of course the beauty of the network is that you can still email someone but it gets harder when you have a hierarchy and you don't know who to ask. I never hesitate to email a question to almost anyone. An awful lot of people are intimidated about asking questions. Then htere is the fact that even if you ask you don't always get answers.If you are not careful the company becomes not a group of connected people making something happen but a bunch of individuals to whom the company is just a job.

For me blogging has really helped me get back to being connected. I've made contacts with people with whom I wouldn't have had conversations otherwise. The JDS change acceptance work has helped too. I've talked to lots of people all over Sun. There is still the challenge though of how to get a question answered. Suppose hypothetically that I want to make sure that the JDS vision we have developed as a part of our change acceleration effort is aligned with Sun's bigger vision for JDS. How do I start that conversation? Who do I talk to? For us to be highly aligned there need to be lots and lots of these kinds of conversations, lots of questions and answers, lots of blogging. (2004-12-08 17:41:26.0) Permalink