If it wasn't enough trouble to come up with the right string of words to describe your brand, now you gotta worry about what your brand sounds like. That's right. You need an audio logo for your podcast. What's your cue music, your sign off... and those little bits in between, like NPR radio uses between segments? MarketingSherpa writes here and here about what's involved in developing their theme song for podcasting.

Check out

If it wasn't enough trouble to come up with the right string of words to describe your brand, now you gotta worry about what your brand sounds like. That's right. You need an audio logo for your podcast. What's your cue music, your sign off... and those little bits in between, like NPR radio uses between segments? MarketingSherpa writes here and here about what's involved in developing their theme song for podcasting.

Check out Podcastinglogos.com to hear snippets of music used by the New England Journal of Medicine, the Baseball Network and other organizations for their podcasts. The site was just launched by independent film score composer Michael Whalen.

Whalen helpfully poses 10 key questions you should consider before commissioning an audio logo. Here are the first five:

1. How is your company perceived in the marketplace? (big, small, cool, traditional, fun, forward thinking, etc.)
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I can feel it seeping in, insidiously... a tendency to write in longer, more formal, more tortuous sentences like, well, like this one. Maybe it has to do with focusing on the topic of corporate blogging. Is 'corporate blogging" the ultimate oxymoron? Not necessarily. But it does pose the particular challenge of finding the right voice. Just because your topic is serious or complex or filled with jargon and acronyms doesn't mean you have to

I can feel it seeping in, insidiously... a tendency to write in longer, more formal, more tortuous sentences like, well, like this one. Maybe it has to do with focusing on the topic of corporate blogging. Is 'corporate blogging" the ultimate oxymoron? Not necessarily. But it does pose the particular challenge of finding the right voice. Just because your topic is serious or complex or filled with jargon and acronyms doesn't mean you have to write about it in a ponderous way.

So Debbie, listen up... cut the corporate-speak on your blog and just... say it.

A couple of useful resources for writing a blog:

- Slide presentation by Molly Holzschlag and Darren Barefoot from their Blog Writing Style session at last week's Blog Business Summit in San Francisco

- Top 7 Tips to Write an Effective Business Blog (PDF). By…

Sorry if that title is a bit of a tongue twister. Gartner today released its 2005 Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies. The research firm has pegged Corporate Blogging and RSS as being two years away from mainstream adoption. For now, both are tumbling into Gartner's Trough of Disillusionment as a result of too much media buzz (along with wikis and desktop search). If you believe Gartner, Corporate Blogging is already sooo... last year

Sorry if that title is a bit of a tongue twister. Gartner today released its 2005 Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies. The research firm has pegged Corporate Blogging and RSS as being two years away from mainstream adoption. For now, both are tumbling into Gartner's Trough of Disillusionment as a result of too much media buzz (along with wikis and desktop search). If you believe Gartner, Corporate Blogging is already sooo... last year (2004).

They've got a point. The media rumble about Corporate Blogging is almost deafening by now. It's not a "new" story anymore. Which is not to say that blogging isn't still a "new" thing to many companies.

Gartner's hype cycle goes something like this: new technologies get…

One of the great things about participating in a three-day conference like Blog Business Summit is meeting in the flesh people you've been interacting with online. (I ran a session featuring dueling corporate blogs: GM's Fastlane blog vs. Intuit's QuickBooks Online blog.)

Dave Tayor, who ran the BBS's popular Blogging 101 pre-conference session, has penned a thoughtful article on this topic: The Critical Business Value of Attending

One of the great things about participating in a three-day conference like Blog Business Summit is meeting in the flesh people you've been interacting with online. (I ran a session featuring dueling corporate blogs: GM's Fastlane blog vs. Intuit's QuickBooks Online blog.)

Dave Tayor, who ran the BBS's popular Blogging 101 pre-conference session, has penned a thoughtful article on this topic: The Critical Business Value of Attending Conferences. BTW, it's been hugely fun for me to meet Dave in person for the first time after several years of email correspondence. It was also wonderful to get to know Tris Hussey better. He lives and works on a tiny island off the coast of Canada, near Vancouver. The lucky guy.

In addition, I've had the chance to meet a handful of whip-smart A-list women bloggers. In no order, a tip of…

Just ran across Hans Mestrum's list of employees at Google and Yahoo! who have public blogs. (Here's a link to a downloadable PDF of Yahoo's blogging guidelines.) From a random check, it appears only a handful identify themselves as employees of their respective companies. Ran into Google's Biz Stone at the Business Blog Summit today in San Francisco. I think he's cool.

Oh, and what's the point of these employee blogs? Whether or not it's

Just ran across Hans Mestrum's list of employees at Google and Yahoo! who have public blogs. (Here's a link to a downloadable PDF of Yahoo's blogging guidelines.) From a random check, it appears only a handful identify themselves as employees of their respective companies. Ran into Google's Biz Stone at the Business Blog Summit today in San Francisco. I think he's cool.

Oh, and what's the point of these employee blogs? Whether or not it's intended, each one is a kind of emissary for his or her company. Some of these blogs are a bit too wandering and personal for my taste. Others make the blog writer look smart and plugged in. If it's the latter, they make their employer look smart and connected.

How cool to meet and chat with Shel Israel* in the hallway outside the Blog Business Summit here in San Francisco. Shel is the co-author with (the famous) Robert Scoble of Naked Conversations (their book about business blogging). He's just finished writing the first draft of the book for Wiley and is now working on revisions. Can't wait til I get to that point... although he says it's tedious.

In the meantime, here's his advice for writing a

How cool to meet and chat with Shel Israel* in the hallway outside the Blog Business Summit here in San Francisco. Shel is the co-author with (the famous) Robert Scoble of Naked Conversations (their book about business blogging). He's just finished writing the first draft of the book for Wiley and is now working on revisions. Can't wait til I get to that point... although he says it's tedious.

In the meantime, here's his advice for writing a book. He starts at about 5 AM and writes till 11:30 AM. "Make it fun," Shel says. He moves around with his laptop... under the umbrella, on the couch, at his desk. And of course at the local Starbucks.

*Shel tells me he was sitting next to me in the 2nd row at this morning's sessions... but I didn't respond when he said hi. Huge…