James Governor's Monkchips

Wake up IBM: come out from behind developerworks!!!

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Why is Lotus’ VP of marketing blogging on developerworks?
 
I realise that many of the early IBM bloggers were in fact developers, but now its a bit daft  to have every new blogger seemingly appearing on developerworks.
 
Come on Surjit, find a different forum – host your own blog or something. Join the likes of Ed.
 
And where on earth are the information management blogs?
 
Who reads developerworks? Who is it targeted at? There is a self-selecting audience there.
 
I think Software Group blog strategists could learn from the likes of GameTomorrow and HealthNex.
 
Blogging is not for tech weenies. Lotus is not just for tech weenies. Or is it? Of course you could argue developerworks is aimed at a general audience. I am not sure I’d buy the pusback though.
 
You might also argue its Surjit’s job to talk to channel partners (which developerworks also addresses). I would say though that grassroots is good but limiting the audience unnecessarily is bad. Perhaps its time for IBM to introduce a productionworks and a businessworks….
 
Its also surely time for Big Blog to initiate some programs to make it easier to navigate its feeds, rather than leaving it up to the likes of Richard Schwartz and Elias Torres. Come on IBM bring out your feed directories and tools. In the process you might get a clue about the OPML list for filtering approach which is coming down the pike…. (see Alex Barnett).
 
Come on in IBM. The water is lovely. Blogging is for everybody.
 
2006 can be a break out year for Lotus, what with the Hannover release and the Vista disruption. But that means marketing to the mainstream.

2 comments

  1. How does an industry analyst teach marketing folks who have the budget for analyst services that they shouldn’t be blogging and their CTOs should be? I know us customers feel the same way.

    As far as IBM bloggers are concerned, I simply wish they would turn on trackback to allow the discussion to continue…

  2. James:

    Your sensible prodding will undoubtedly spur my IBM colleagues to corral and organize the range of blog feeds that are sprouting from the company.

    In fact, there well may be an effort underway.

    What’s most interesting is how rapidly and explosively blogging (and now podcasting) has come on the scene across the company.

    It’s a great challenge to keep up with, so I would love a metafeed that would help me digest the breadth of blogging.

    On a small side note, my own area of blog interest, healthcare IT, has in less than six months become part of a larger circle of similar blogs. One enterprising member of this community, Shahid Shah, has built a meta site called HITsphere that enables me to quickly scan what our extend group is posting about.

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