Logging On the Web

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Rebecca Blood, a Web developer and consultant who formerly managed a departmental site at the University of Washington, uses her Web log, www.rebeccablood.net, as an outlet for her creative expression. But her skill at Web logging also subtly promotes her skills as a Web designer and manager, and demonstrates her knowledge of the Internet itself. "A Web log offers an easy platform for self-expression, and it's easier to set up than an elaborate Web site," Blood says. "And it's much more effective than setting up a mailing list where you're just pushing out E-mail at people about the links you find."

Blood's site is dear to the large, growing, and endlessly creative Web-logging community, the vast majority of which fiercely opposes the notion that businesses could exploit Web logs for their own capitalist purposes. "I've never seen a business do Web logging, and frankly, I hope I never do," says journalist Jim Romenesko, who operates two news-filtering Web logs, www.obscurestore.com and www.medianews.org. "There's a certain resentment among independent writers who feel businesses will try to co-opt them."

Nevertheless, it's happening. Businesspeople like Terry Yelmene see great potential in using a Web log to tout their own expertise. Yelmene, a consultant with 3C3 Applied Research and Technology, a four-person company based in Boulder, Colo., is an expert in knowledge management. Large businesses in the Boston area hire Yelmene and his colleagues to help them find out which employees know what and to develop ways of sharing that knowledge.

Yelmene's Web site, www.3C3art.com, will soon feature a link to a personal Web log called "Knowledgeer at Large," which will include constantly updated links to new articles of use to his company's clients and anyone else interested in the wide world of knowledge management. "I'm taking content about knowledge management and publishing my opinions within the framework of a Web log that can be read by my clients and the knowledge-management community," says Yelmene. "It will be great for my business, because it's a mechanism for demonstrating what I can do."

If your Web log is successful, your electronic community will grow, which can be both good and bad.

Dave Winer also uses his Web log to opine. The CEO of UserLand Software Inc., an eight-person software company in San Francisco, Winer holds forth on content-management software for the Web on UserLand's public site. Each of the company's development-team members keeps a public Web log -- using tools the company has developed -- on the UserLand site, where they share their technical knowledge with the Web-development community and ask for public feedback.

Winer and his far-flung colleagues -- who work in Seattle and Los Angeles and even in Germany -- also use their Web logs as a corporate intranet. After entering the password-protected private site, they follow links to get information on employees, projects, sales numbers, milestones, and more. Winer is able to oversee the private site, post information to it, monitor bugs, and track project deliverables using specific software. "Our Web log is our management process," says Winer. "It's remarkable how much more productive we've become using it."

To Blog or Not to Blog
Although Web logging has valid applications for many kinds of companies, it isn't practical for every small business, says Jakob Nielsen, principal of Norman Nielsen Group, a consulting company in Mountain View, Calif., and author of Designing Web Usability: The Practice of Simplicity. "You have to be able to say something reasonably new every day about what's happening in your field," Nielsen says. "If you have a static site and an irregular publishing schedule, you will turn people off."

And while self-expression may be the main goal of individual Web loggers, a company's Web log has a different raison d'être. As a marketing tool, it's the organization's public and professional face. Thus, anyone who regards word-mongering as more of a struggle than a pleasure should probably avoid Web logging, Nielsen says, noting that there's nothing worse than reading someone's bad content. (Hint: If you don't have the requisite writing skills, find someone who does and put them on daily Web-log duty.) Stretch yourself too thin, and your lack of energy will show in the poor quality of your Web log, he says. "Companies that lack the resources to commit to a daily Web log would be better off publishing a semimonthly E-mail newsletter, containing some fresh insight and links to interesting articles," Nielsen advises.

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