The M20: Top Marketer Blogs

Todd "Turbo" Watson, IBM

Todd "Turbo" Watson blogs at IBM and #21 on the September 2007 M20 list.  He is currently the e-relationship manager at IBM Software Group and blogs about e-business and technology.

Here's more on Todd:

* How long have you been blogging?
Since July 2005.

* How did you first hear about blogs?
I don't remember when I first read about blogs per se, but I do remember attending and speaking at SXSW Interactive in March 2000 (right before the bubble burst!) and having the opportunity to hear from some of the "Cluetrain Manifesto" gang (one of whom Christopher Locke, was a former IBMer), and thought to myself, "Hmmm," there's something to this whole "markets as conversation" thing.  Once I started seeing and reading the first prominent blogs appearing in 2003-2004 (recognizing there were others like Dave Winer who had been around much earlier than that), I realized how right they'd been.

* Why did you decide to start blogging?
Having developed the IBM e-business site when IBM first broke its e-business advertising campaign back in October 1997, and as blogging began to enter more and more Web marketers' consciousness inside IBM, I realized that there was an enormous opportunity to break through the Big Blue wall and speak straight to folks outside the IBM firewall.

It also occurred to me that I was built to blog.  I love to write, I'm passionate about the Internet and technology and IBM, and I thought there could be a real opportunity to merge those two loves by creating a blog.  Well, ironically, it just so happened that the team running the e-business site in mid-2005 that I had helped start years before was on the look out for a blogger, and so I threw my name in the hat and was selected.  It was like coming home.  Now all I had to do was just figure out what to say!

* What process, if any, did you work through from a corporate perspective?
After I was selected, I basically was given free reign in terms of topics and voice.

While I was very concerned from the outset that our corporate communications or PR teams, or even our marketing team, might intervene when there was a controversial story or egg in our face or whatever, if anything, it's been quite the opposite.  On a few occasions, I've actually gone to our corporate communications team on offense to make them aware of a breaking story and/or to seek their advice and counsel.  That may seem to some to be counter to the blogging ethos, but the difference being I'm reaching out to them and it's nice to know I have benefit of their expertise there when I need it.

Otherwise, I simply tried to follow the spirit, if not the letter, of IBM's blogging guidelines, making sure not to go into things like financials, confidential information, etc in my postings., and using just plain common sense.  But, I also try to have a little fun with it as well.

* What would you change with 20/20 hindsight?
Honestly, I don't know that I'd change much of anything except that I'd make blogging more of my job, not less.  I wouldn't say I'd make it 100%, because part of my value as a blogger comes from my experience as an interactive marketing strategist and practitioner.  However, I would love the opportunity to spend even MORE time writing about all the cool stuff going on both at IBM and in the industry at large.  There's just so much to keep up with.

What I wouldn't is coming at this with my offbeat sense of humor.  It was important for me from the outset to be able to poke fun both at IBM, IBMers, and Web culture in general, and to try and have an above average sense of humor in my blog.  Because that's something's that's always struck me as missing from the corporate face of IBM.  If I was going to do one thing to try and help change that face, for my money a sense of humor was key.  Hopefully I've succeeded, even if just a little. 

I do want people out there to know that we at IBM, despite all evidence to the contrary, are not Borgs.  Well, not most of us.  And those of us who are, and I'm not going to comment about myself in particular, are still being held up in IBM Research due to some intellectual property right issues.  Because it's not clear if we as Borgs are owned by IBM, or if we own ourselves.  Hopefully that will get worked out in legal soon.

* What three blogs have you gained the most insight from in the past month?
Richard McManus' Read/WriteWeb (All Things Web 2.0)
Steve Rubel's "Micropersuasion" (All Things Interactive Marketing Communications and PR)
Gord Hotchkiss' "Out of My Gord" (All Things Search)

[If you're a client-side marketer and would like to be profiled - even if you're not in the top 20 - send in your story!  See this post for details.]

Kris Hoet, 'Cross The Breeze

Kris Hoet blogs at 'Cross The Breeze, #17 on the September 2007 M20 list. He is currently the EMEA Marketing Manager for Microsoft in Belgium and blogs about interactive, technology and a host of related topics.

Here's more on Kris:

* How long have you been blogging?
Since October 2005.

* How did you first hear about blogs?
I’ve always been interested in using new technology/media in marketing and for years I’ve been surfing the web discovering new things and typically sending a whole bunch of links to colleagues for stuff they had to see (thank you del.icio.us for fixing that). That’s how blogs entered my life I guess.

* Why did you decide to start blogging?
I wanted to understand it a lot better. Reading blogs just didn’t seem to be enough to really figure out what was going on, what impact it can/could really have. So I looked for a good platform that would allow me easily set this up (and free) and probably started shortly after on Wordpress.com. Although this initially was supposed to be like a 3 month trial (yeah I know, sounds silly but that’s the truth) to figure it out, I got into it quickly and [never stopped].

* What process, if any, did you work through from a corporate perspective?
Nothing really. I uploaded my blog to the Community website (which is optional) and signed up for the internal blogger alias (optional as well) and that’s it. The Community website might get you some traffic and can help customers to find information (although that last one is less relevant with my blog as I don’t talk about tech aspects of our products) and the alias is good when you want to ask a question to some of the other bloggers at Microsoft (there are about 4.500 of them, but not all on the alias). And I added a disclaimer of some sorts stating the blog represents my opinion, the usual I guess.

* What are your most and least favorite aspects of blogging?
- Most favorite aspects are the experiences you have because of the blog, always new things happen.  The people I’ve met through blogging and the conversations I’ve had (both on the blog as via other channels) were beyond what I expected at first. The blog also turned out to be a great digital archive, something I always missed when sending out interesting stuff over email the years before.
- The least favorite parts are probably the comment spam (although Akismet works quite well to fight it) and the splogs stealing your content. In the beginning I didn’t like the daily rhythm you’re trying to get yourself onto for blogging, but once you give up on that you see it works fine without that posting stress.

* What would you change with 20/20 hindsight?
Not much really. I wouldn’t have written my first posts, not because they’re wrong but because they were a lot less on topic at that time… more random things I got interested in, but then again they were a good learning as well.

* What three blogs have you gained the most insight from in the past month?
Tough question. I’m following around 300 blogs and there are many that I enjoy reading. Some really good ones among them are:
Gapingvoid : I use at least one of Hugh’s many cartoons in almost every presentation I give
Marketing & Strategy Innovation Blog: because it groups a bit of the best of some bloggers I like reading and follow individually as well (David Armano, Guy Kawasaki, …)
Marketing Profs Daily Fix: same like before, some interesting people together in one place, thanks to Ann

* Anything else?
Let’s say I really got the hang of the whole blogging thing as I started 2 other blogs during the course of the last few months, both on very different topics. In I Blog Mustang I wanted to look at ways to get myself that precious classic Mustang I always wanted (in a bit of a fun way hopefully) and in Little Book of Travel I hope to gather good stories & rants from frequent travelers to be read by frequent travelers. So no tips, brilliant holidays or anything… anything else you can send my way. Forgive me for the shameless self promotion ;)

[If you're a client-side marketer and would like to be profiled - even if you're not in the top 20 - send in your story!  See this post for details.]

Kevin Dugan, Strategic Public Relations

Kevin Dugan blogs at Strategic Public Relations, #2 on the September 2007 M20 list.  He is currently Director of Marketing Communications at FRCH Design Worldwide and blogs about PR strategy as part of integrated marketing communication.

Here's more on Kevin:

* How long have you been blogging?
prblog.typepad.com has been live since June of 2002. I was at an ad agency at the time before moving client side to my current employer -- an architecture and interior design firm.

* How did you first hear about blogs?
A co-worker had been writing a personal blog and the media was slowly starting to discuss them. The uninitiated were usually dismissive, characterizing them as online diaries brimming with teen-like angst. The uninitiated have since moved on to dismissing things like Twitter as blogs have been proven out as a viable marketing tactic. Twitter will get there too as marketers find new, creative ways to apply it and reach their target audience.

* Why did you decide to start blogging?
An opinion is worth 80 IQ points and a blog helps me craft mine. But the final trigger was an Information Week article. It noted how blogs are easy to use and allow you to serve up your intellectual capital and essentially carry it around with you over time. I wanted to stay current with my skills and continue to hone my writing. Mission accomplished.

* What process, if any, did you work through from a corporate perspective?
I'm very upfront about the fact that my views and opinions do not necessarily reflect those of my employer or its clients. My employer supports my efforts indirectly, but the blog is mine. They do have a blogging policy in place that I am also in line with…my posts cover topics and information I would be comfortable telling our competitors.

* What are your most and least favorite aspects of blogging?
- Most favorite has been meeting marketing folks from around the world and getting smarter through the conversation.
- Least favorite is being past deadline on a writing assignment for the last five years. I knew going into this five years ago that I needed to set expectations. My posts come about once or twice a week. Posting more for quality vs. quantity has meant the slow build of an audience. But it also allows me to have a life, day job and all that jazz.

* What would you change with 20/20 hindsight?
Start the blog at a dedicated domain that I own. Now I do not want to lose the Google juice it's taken me so long to collect. This would also give me the flexibility to change software platforms more easily.

* What three blogs have you gained the most insight from in the past month?
Twitter (if you reason that everyone I follow there is a microblog and Twitter one big feed)
Advertising Lab (Ilya has a great mix of content, links and eye candy)
Influx Insights - (Ed Cotton keeps coming up with the next/new now).

* Anything else?
After blogging for five years, my experience has really improved/changed in the past 12 months. After adding Twitter and social networks like Facebook into the mix I am more actively involved in the conversation. People are busy and, while they might be reading you, they might not be commenting as much as you'd like. Part of that may be my content style and some of the communication was behind the scenes via email.

The added level of almost contagious engagement I'm looking for comes through Twitter and the socnets. I've also started playing with video recently and am enjoying that experience as well. These breakthroughs all came just in time as I was considering walking away from the blog entirely.

The creation of this communication ecosystem (three buckets: blog, microblog, socnets) winds up fueling itself as I might start an idea using 140 characters, someone else thinking about it might come my way via Facebook…I do not have to surf Facebook, it continually serves up the latest to me...and then post about the topic on my blog. Or I might blog about something….you get the idea. It's a very potent combination for conversation.

[If you're a client-side marketer and would like to be profiled - even if you're not in the top 20 - send in your story!  See this post for details.]

More client-side marketer blogs

I've run across a couple of additional client-side marketing blogs:

• Suzanne's Blog.  Written by Suzanne Fanning, Senior Manager of Public Relations for Fiskars.
• MEGO - My Eyes Glaze Over.  Written by Michelle Kostya, Marketing Communications Manager for Cuisinart and Waring Pro (Canada).

Welcome and Bienvenue!  Submissions on marketer blogs are always welcome here.

Tamara Gielen, BeRelevant

Tamara Gielen blogs at BeRelevant, #3 on the September 2007 M20 list.  She is currently an email marketing manager at eBay in Belgium and blogs about email marketing best practices.

Here's more on Tamara:

* How long have you been blogging?
Since February 2005

* How did you first hear about blogs?
Don't remember exactly but it must have been 2003-2004

* Why did you decide to start blogging?
I had to do a project for a course that I attended in 2005 and one of the options was to set up a blog. I choose the topic of email marketing because I was already gathering a lot of information on the topic and I thought that a blog could be a great way to share my passion for email marketing with the world. I wasn't very successful at monetizing the blog at the time, but I couldn't stop blogging after the course finished ;)

* What process, if any, did you work through from a corporate perspective?
None. I just included a disclaimer in my about page saying that whatever I post on the blog is my own view, and they don't represent the views of my employer. To avoid getting into trouble, I've always avoided talking about my employers.

* What are your most and least favorite aspects of blogging?
- Most favorite aspect: it is great for networking and personal branding. It helped to establish myself as an expert in my field. My current and future employer (I'm about to change jobs) both hired me on account of my blog.
- Least favorite aspect: it's time-consuming. I spend at least one-two hours per day reading articles and surfing the internet to find topics to blog about. When I don't post for a couple of days, I feel guilty...

* What would you change with 20/20 hindsight?
nothing really :)

* What three blogs have you gained the most insight from in the past month?

No man is an iland
Email Experience Blog
Email Insider

[If you're a client-side marketer and would like to be profiled - even if you're not in the top 20 - send in your story!  See this post for details.]

M20: The Badge

Thanks to my friends at Proximity Design, we now have an official M20 badge for your blog.

For convenience, feel free to repurpose this code where appropriate:

<center><a href="http://www.marketer20.com"><img src="http://www.marketer20.com/images/m20badge.jpg"></a></center>

P.S. I'm still looking for stories from marketers on why you blog.

Research request: Why do you blog?

Hi - in response to Valeria's excellent suggestion, I'd like to start a series on why marketers blog.

If you are a marketer who blogs - whether on the M20 or not - I'd like to highlight you in a post.  If you could email me directly in response to the following questions, along with a picture and link to your blog, that would be fantastic.

I'd like to keep these in a consistent Q&A format, so copying the questions and responding inline would be preferred:

• What is your URL and how long have you been blogging?
• How did you first hear about blogs?
• Why did you decide to start blogging?
• What process, if any, did you work through from a corporate perspective?
• What are your most and least favorite aspects of blogging?
• What would you change with 20/20 hindsight?
• What three blogs have you gained the most insight from in the past month?
• Anything else?

Thanks!  Your suggestions for additional questions and insight are always welcome.  (The email link is in the right hand nav.)

Help wanted: Social media manager/guru/evangelist, Nokia.

[Karl Long suggested the M20 could be a good place for people to post and hear about client-side social media jobs.  I agree.  If you have an opening to post, let me know!]

Are you Russell?  Nokia is looking for "a media, technology, and wireless-obsessed individual to be the global eyes, ears, mouth, and fingers for its new user-generated content platform MOSH [Mobilize and Share]."

My guess is that "Russell" would have access to some very cool Nokia stuff, like the N95 and N800.  Plus, you get to spend a lot of time in Helsinki - a great place to visit.

Visit the Nokia Careers site for more details.

The M20 on The Viral Garden

Mack Collier has posted week 72 of The Viral Garden's Top 25 Marketing Blogs.  Two blogs crossover with the M20:

• ExperienceCurve :: Karl Long, Nokia  #1 here, #24 VG
• Conversation Agent :: Valeria Maltoni, SunGard Availability Services [51] #5 here, #19 VG

Differences between the M20 and Viral Garden Top 25 occur in both the consideration set and the rank calculation.  Congrats to both Karl and Valeria!

[I'd argue that Todd Andrlik should probably be on the Viral Garden list as well, but to each list manager his own!]

M20 blogger nationalities added

To further personalise the M20 list, I've taken a cue from the Power 150 and added flags to each entry indicating blogger nationality.

Now, I had to guess on some and I'm guessing that some bloggers (Karl, Eric?) might prefer a different flag.

No worries and my apologies, just let me know.

:)

(I only identified four different nationalities, but there are 247 available.  Thanks, famfamfam!)