Have you heard about Feeddigest? Sounds cool. And like a great tool for the non-techie like me. Basically, it rolls up all your RSS feeds (mixes them), converts them to HTML (or PHP or whatever) and lets you re-syndicate them to your site or blog. Thanks to Daniel Nerezov of SouthernCrossVentures for the tip. Yes, it's free.
While I'm holed up writing The Corporate Blogging Book, this blog debbieweil.com is being re-designed as the meta site - or portal - for all my sites (WordBiz.com, WordBizStore.com, EnewsletterStarterKit.com, BloggingStarterKit.com, etc.) and blogs (debbieweil.com and BlogWriteForCEOs.com).
Look for a Feb. 2006 re-launch with a brand new look. And yes, we're building the whole thing on blogging software.
I can't wait... Stay tuned.
In the meantime, here's a sneak peek at the cover for my book. So waddya think?
Provocative.
A group of students in "Advanced Organizational Communication" at Northeastern University are penning a blog along with their professor and they've come up with a new way of describing a corporate blog:
"Synthetic transparency involves using blogs to give the impression of openness, honesty, and transparency but without really doing so.
This notion is based on Norman Fairclough's* idea of "synthetic personalization"** which he defines as:
... a compensatory tendency to give the impression of treating each of the people 'handled' en masse as an individual. Examples would be air travel (have a nice day!), restaurants (Welcome to Wimpy!) and the simulated conversation (for example, chat shows) and bonhomie which litter the media..."
Waddya think?
So waddya think? I kind of like it. There's been some discussion about whether "Hello" is the right word for the thought bubble. I think it's open-ended and neutral enough that it's fine. Kudos to Penguin Portfolio's designer!
Click image to see it full-size.
GM's Smallblock Engine blog shuts down tomorrow after exactly one year, perhaps the first highly-publicized Fortune 500 blog to bite the dust. This sounds like a natural death. It was an event-driven blog, created for the 50th anniversary of the Corvette's small-block engine. And the party is over. Makes sense. (Dave Hill, chief engineer of the Corvette, is also retiring which kind of wraps it up nicely.)
You could say it created a category for corporate blogs: event-specific and time-limited. It never got a huge number of comments from readers. But that's OK too. Remember, a blog is just a tool. Use it anyway you want as long as you make it a good read, you're honest and…
It's like childbirth. (Apologies if this metaphor doesn't work for you.) Scary, exhilarating and, yes, painful. To be precise, it feels like the last stage of giving birth. Suddenly it's going faster, there's an unstoppable momentum and you know there will be a result that will make it all worthwhile.
And yes, I've been through it three times (childbirth, not writing a book) with two remarkable daughters (see Amanda running the Boston Marathon here) and a remarkable son to show for it.
I've still got a lot to write and wrestle with... onward.
"Rock-solid advice and examples," says Chris Anderson, author of The Long Tail. This comprehensive guide confronts the Big 3: fear, the time factor and what to write.
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