This post is getting a lot of play in blogland, as you might imagine (thanks, Johnnie).
In it, Graeme Thickins gives 10 perfectly rational reasons why "Business and Blogs Are Like Oil and Water." They are:
- Business doesn't do passion
- Business doesn't like gossip
- Business doesn't like doing public experiments
- Business doesn't bear its soul
- Business is already time-strapped
- Business already communicates well
- Businesses are advertisers and advertisers don't like blogs
- Business and politics don't mix well
- Business writing style and blogger style don't even come close
- Businesses have other ways of promoting their stances
See what I mean? What rational human being could argue against those points?
If only we were in a time when "rational" was all it took for a business to be successful. Good old fashioned left brain thinking to the rescue, once again!
How rational is this? These are some of the most successful frangances in the world today, selling at enormous margins. Why? Not because fragrances are something rational, that's for sure.
No, it's because these fragrances promise a dream, telling an enticing story about who we will become when others are in our scented presence; as Seth would say, they lie. They appeal to our powerful emotional side, our right brain (and, to our even more primordial reptilian brain). What we're seeing today is that every successful product, no matter how commonplace is infused with passion. And that successful businesses are appreciating the need to emotionally connect with people.
As long as businesses heed Mr. Thickins advice, and keep making good sense, keep using that reliable, logical, passionless left brain, communicating as well as they are now, they'll continue to run with the pack.
It's the courageous, creative, "righties" who will see blogs as a way to develop distinctive connections with customers; the people who are tired of being communicated-to and marketed-at; the people who want to be related-with, respectfully.
Two different theories-of-the-case. Let's see what happens.
And, by the way, tell me again why these big companies are doing this?
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