Debbie Weil is a corporate blogging and social media expert, online marketing consultant, speaker and author of The Corporate Blogging Book (Portfolio). She consults with large companies, CEOs and senior executives on how to create blogs that connect with customers and attract media attention.

Should you ghostblog for your CEO? Is anonymous blogging OK? Do you need a blog editor? All is revealed in the audio recording and enhanced PDF transcript of my April 2007 teleconference. Buy and download instantly. When the rubber meets the road, the content of your blog is what will determine its success or failure. By content I mean the topics, the writers, the voice, the links, the Comments from readers. The first teleconference in my series on corporate blogging focused on the knotty problem of how to create a content strategy for a corporate or organizational blog. [more]

I've ordered four novels from the British publisher, Persephone Books, which specializes in 20th century novels written by neglected women authors. Each is wonderful reading and is published with a distinctive gray cover and a beautiful endpaper. Decidedly non-digital book selections but just what I'm hungering for.

Leave a comment below to share your reading picks for the summer

What about you? Click below on Leave a comment with your own suggestions for summer reading.

I'm currently reading one of Persephone's newest re-issues: The Shuttle by Frances Hodgson Burnett. If that name is familiar, it should be. Burnett is the author of one of my favorite books as a child, The Secret Garden. But she also wrote adult novels. The Shuttle, 504 pages long and first published exactly 100 years ago, is about… [more]

This report is free. The Blogging Revolution: Government in the Age of Web 2.0, is a meaty guide to social media (great charts, tables, screenshots) that focuses on blogging in the public sector. The most intriguing case study is about how blogging is being used as part of the War on Terror by the U.S. Military. General James Cartwright, commander of the U.S. Strategic Command (STRATCOM), offers a fascinating glimpse into how blogs are part of STRATCOM's online information management system.

Blogging enables decision-making on a dime, 24X7, he explains. Information supplied by a 19-year-old private may be just as - or more - important than what a commanding officer contributes. Currently, the system is logging 250,000 - 350,000 blog entries or comments (he calls them transactions) per hour.

The report covers some of the same ground as my book, The Corporate Blogging Book, but it's written in a dryer, more academic fashion. The author is David Wyld, a professor at Southeastern Louisiana University. My one quibble is that, while the report is heavily footnoted, he makes no mention of any other books about blogging (including mine).

Seems like a conspicuous omission to me. (I reference several "competitor" books at the back of mine in a Recommended Reading suggestion). The report is nicely laid out, however, and I highly recommend it.

You can download and print out the report, published by IBM's' Center for The Business of Government. Or request to have a bound copy sent to you. It's a 97-page, 8 1/2 X 11 inch softcover. Download page

I'm on a panel with Des Walsh of Business and Blogging fame at Ad-Tech Beijing. This is a mega event being held at the China World Hotel, adjacent to the China World Trade Center. Des is moderating our panel, one of the last of the two-day conference. Joining us will be Jason Ge, National Sales, GM Sina.

Panel is from 1625h - 1725h. 

More blog coaching (writing, strategy, etc.) with author and consultant Scott Eblin. Check out his new blog.

Presentation with Pat Cleary of ShopFloor.org blogging fame. Pat is now with Fleishman-Hillard in Washington DC. Learn more about Georgetown's Master of Professional Studies Programs in PR and Journalism.

In-house workshop on social media (blogging, wikis, etc.) for Eli Lilly and Co. at headquarters in Indianapolis.

Keynote for in-house event on social media at Eli Lilly and Company at headquarters in Indianapolis.

Attending a meeting in Wyoming from Wednesday June 20th through Friday June 22nd.

For the American College of Radiology.

I just want to thank you for being as terrific as I'd hoped you would be!

- Nancy Cook, Sr. Director, Marketing, Communications & Public Relations, ACR.org