Charlotte Internet is Coming

Charlotte Internet Blog

Charlotte Internet is coming...back! What started as the first Internet community in Charlotte, North Carolina, headed by Dave Beckwith back in 1995, will now become Charlotte's low-cost, high-value internet provider...thanks to the help of the legend himself, Scott Huffman -- longtime captain of Webkorner Internet Services. Webkorner will continue to offer internet services, but will focus more on broadband and business applications.

But Charlotte Internet does not stop at the internet's edge. There are many facets to the net, and many different professionals and artists who make it run well and beautifully. If we can't do it for you ourselves, we can direct you to those who can...as part of our new referral service.

If you are in the Charlotte area, and would like to try out our new service, or get involved in our referral program, drop us a line, and we'll set up an appointment.

In addition to Internet and referral services, we also offer blogging and marketing services. You can have your business, product or service featured on one of our network of blogs such as this one (Trade Street Journal) or one of our other fine blogs...including Carolina Art Blog, Wanderblogger, The Charlotte News, Idea Consultants, Carolina Blog Consultants, Planet Bizblog, and others.

Other exciting developments include VoIP (Internet Phone), IPTV, Podcasting, and much more still coming down the pike.

Corporate Blogs List

Wiki with a list of Corporate Blogs...

Recently added:
Outsell (online media consulting) - http://now.outsellinc.com/
Cheskin - http://weblog.cheskin.net/
Red Hat:
Red Hat Executives Blog - http://blogs.redhat.com/executive
Red Hat People Blog - http://blogs.redhat.com/people
Red Hat Intern Blog - http://blogs.redhat.com/intern/
Red Hat Magazine Editor's Blog - http://blogs.redhat.com/magazine/
EDS (Electronic Data Systems Corp.): EDS' Next Big Thing Blog - http://www.eds.com/sites/cs/blogs/eds_next_big_thing_blog/default.aspx
Edelman - Christopher Hannegan, SVP, U.S. Director of Employee Engagement: Employee Engagement - http://www.edelman.com/speak_up/empeng/
The Security Awareness Company (Interpact, Inc.) - Security Awareness for Ma, Pa and the Corporate Clueless
Associates Consulting Group (investment banking) - http://associatesconsultinggroup.blogspot.com/
Reprise Media (Search Engine Marketing) - http://searchviews.com/

For the full, and evolving, list...click here.

Other resources:
How Many Fortune 500's Blogging? - Jeremy Wright, Ensight
European Corporate Blogs, a list maintained by Fredrik Wackå
Business Blog Consulting - examples of business blogs
A List of Business Blogs maintained by Darren Rowse
Biz Blogs (sans Consultants), maintained by students from Auburn University
SEE ALSO:
The Product Blogs List
The CEO Blogs List
BizBlogConsultants

Caro Consulting

Teresa Caro launches her blog, Caro

Lot's of good stuff.

(Thanks to Diva Marketing for the link)

excerpt:
Yesterday, the people from Jupiter and Search Engine Watch came to Atlanta for a half day presentation and round table event—Search Engine Watch Forums LIVE!

Key take aways were...

- Dave Williams from 360i. "Watch the trends. There is tremendous growth in the vertical search market – Orbitz, Shopping.com, Froogle, and Shopzilla. Out of search new ad models have emerged – click to call, local search, day parting, demographic search, contextual search etc. Your competitors are becoming savvier with A/B testing & multi-variable optimization. More and more studies show search is a valuable component of a branding campaign."

- Stacy Williams from Prominent Placement. "To overcome search marketing challenges, use all the tools available to you... Optimized blogs & press releases and well placed, high quality links to your site. Make sure your PR team is regularly monitoring the web and is working with the marketing team to address any negative PR that crops up. Take a look at local search – 25% of today's searches."

InsideBlogging - The Blog Consulting Company

"These guys have brought blogging to the forefront for businessmen like myself. It would have taken years for many of us to learn about blogging."

Darren Barefoot, Jeremy Wright, Tris Hussey and the gang want you to know that "The brochure site is dead. Weblogs are a corporate communications tool that can provide immediate and lasting benefits to your organization."

Their clients include Inkspress, Rococo, Recruiting.com and eBusiness Connection.

Why Blog?

VisionPace asks the primary question.
Let us examine Doug Bliss' answers...

"Why Blog? From a business perspective blogs are no different from marketing channels like video, print, audio or presentations. They all deliver results of varying kind. The kind you can expect from blogs is mainly about stronger relations with target groups important to you. Below are a few blogging advantages we hope to benefit from."

Customer Relationships
"In a forum where your main objective is not to directly sell, you'll have a more personal relationship between you and your customers. Blogs are a fast way to engage customers' discussions, provide tips and insights or receive feedback."

Some of your readers will be come customers. But not just ordinary customers. Knowledgable and friendly customers. Customers who may actually behave like a sales or marketing department, as they may alert their network of associates, weak and strong ties, all of whom may, at least, speak of you positively, but some of whom will become veritable salespeople who, themselves, are strong and loyal customers.

Media Relations
"It's every PR-consultants dream to create a channel where media regularly check what you have to say, instead of media just being passive - sometimes indifferent - recipients of press releases."

Indeed. Especially since the blog arena is where so much of the best news is to be found. You needen't even lick a stamp. Just point you browser to be right spots, and go!

Recruiting
"If you establish your company as a thought leader, people in your business will pay attention. They'll read and discuss what you have to say. Chances are good they will see you as an attractive employer."

One's blog becomes one's portfolio that one pieces together one blogpost at a time, and over time. Not rifled together in a frantic afternoon.

Testing Ideas or Concepts
"A blog is informal. It's part of a conversation where people (often) can comment, and the blog can provide you with a measure of value. Publish an idea and see if it generates interest. Does anyone link to you? What do they say?"

Some people say that blog comments, themselves, are blogs. And I tend to agree. I have have seen blog comments that were far better than the blogpost to which it referred. Indeed, some my very best writing has been written in comment windows.
One should always welcome, nay, inspire comments, and then be sure to attend to them. The benefits of a healthy comment world ripple in ways we have yet to discover. Hey! Who's at the door...

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
"Google and other search engines reward sites that are updated often, that link to other sites and most importantly, that has many inbound links. Start a blog at your regular site and your ranking will receive a boost."

The higher your ranking, the higher you are on Google. You are high on Google, aren't you? Hmm. Not a bad ad:

I'm HIGH on Google!

Blog Entries
"Don't be as concerned with the length or style of your entry. Keep the focus on sharing your thoughts and opinions on a particular subject. That's what readers are most interested in."

Knowledge, facts and wisdom might be nice too. No didacticism though. And pleeeease don't be calumnious, petulant or insane. At least not at the same time.

(Thanks to BloggingBusiness for the link.)

mistersugar: How to persuade a business to blog

Carolina Blog Consultant, Anton Zuiker, shows us how it is done...

EXCERPT:
At the business blogging panel tonight, I did my usual speed-talking history of weblogs.

Afterward, Diane Kuehn and I were chatting about ways she can help her business clients incorporate weblogs into their communication and marketing strategies. Reflecting on my own experience at my new job, where I waited three months to explain how a weblog, along with a magazine, would be a great way to share loads of interesting and useful information that our own employees are clamoring for and our funding agency demands, I suggested this exercise for how a business, or a consultant advising a business, should approach blogs:

Don’t say the word ‘blog’. Don’t even mention the concept of how a frequently updated website is good practice. You’ll get your chance later. Just hold on.

Identify a reporter. Choose a mid-level employee, or if you’re a consultant, hire a freelance journalist. Give the person a notebook and pen and these instructions: Over the next week, I want you to write down all of the interesting, useful or newsworthy facts, stories or tidbits about our company that you hear or read. Go about your normal routine and attend your regular meetings. And, in your coffee room or hallway conversations, try to learn something new about the backgrounds and interests of your colleagues.

[Hyperlinks available on the other side of this link.]

E-Oasis Launches Business Blog

ClickPress

[ClickPress, Thu Jun 16 2005] LONGMONT, Colo., June 16, 2005 - Electronic Oasis Consulting, Inc. (E-Oasis) today announced the launch of E-Oasis Alerts. The business blog will focus on the products and services of the network consulting company.

"The interactive nature of blogging coupled with the clear and powerful business dynamics will prove to be a major business advantage," said Blaine Berger, President of E-Oasis.

"Incredibly, most businesses have yet to discover the value that blogging can provide. E-Oasis will apply its lessons learned to help our customers build business blogs."


To see their new blog, go here.

The Evolutionary Origins of the Weblog

Idea Consultants: Nick Lewis

The weblog -- far from being a mere fad -- is a technological expression of our evolutionary heritage.

“Blogs haven't displaced media, US study finds”, reads the latest Reuters headline about blogs. This headline is part of a sudden blog-bashing trend which I predicted would occur two weeks ago[1]. The article’s headline reeks of typical MSM anti-blog bias. Even the word, “displaced”, means literally: “to remove from the usual or proper place.” As expected, the actual truth is buried in the middle of the article:

"The study dispels the notion that blogs are replacing traditional media as the public's primary source of information, said Michael Cornfield, a senior research consultant at Pew.”

MORE

Dave Beckwith's "Idea Management" comes of age

Information Week and more on "Idea Management"

A few years ago, Information Week called me on the phone and asked me to tell him about Idea Management, since they had ascertained that I have coined the term, and had the first website on the topic. I told him I really hadn't done much with it other than create the website, which wasn't what he wanted to hear. So sorry Charlie!

Here is an article they wrote about it. Not sure if it was the one I was to be involved in.

It is amusing to see how it has grown, and now I think I will take up the reins and get back into it. First I want to see what others are doing with it.


In May, 1998...seven years ago this month, this article surfaced:

A Proposal for Web Idea Management
by Alexei Falaleev

in which the author has the following couple of paragraphs:

The term "idea management" is a little idea itself, as well as a unique word pattern that is searchable after the idea of the term appeared. I tried Altavista to check whether I was first to find it, and alas, I found that "Idea Management is a term that was coined ... by Dave Beckwith". I spent just a minute for the checking. That is the way it should be for a huge amount of little and large ideas identifiable by word patterns.

The first idea banks and idea searching tools have already appeared on the Web. They are easily searchable, so I am not going to describe them here just to show my competence. As a start point for surfing, I could recommend Idea Management.

It's mine! It's mine I tell you! And I want it back, as well as all of the profits made from it!
Gimme gimme!

Aw...what the heck. Keep your money. I have enough.

Trade Street Journal, Idea Management and Idea Consultants goes way back, and Darryl Parker and I were among the very first blokes in Charlotte to carpe the internet diem. For more on that history, see Idea Consultants blog. We are not a flash in the pan group of folks. We have been doing this for years. And we know the future. Our history bears this out.

Business Blog Consultants

Radiant Marketing Group

Excerpt:
Who was the first business blog consultant? I think B. L. Ochman may be accorded that honor. (I could be wrong.) Debbie Weil is doing it. Of course, Jeremy Wright got in early when he started Inside Blogging after the infamous eBay auction. Tris Hussey is another, as is Toby Bloomberg. Dana Vanden Heuvel, Elisa Camahort, and Andy Wibbels are others who come to mind.

A bevy of others have begun to dot the landscape. My friend John Jantsch started Blogging Business recently and has joined the party. I noticed Priya Shah has become India's first business blog consultant. (That's one of the items on her palette.)

Denise Wakeman is doing it, as is Wayne Hurlbert. Steve Rubel is, at least with Cooper-Katz clients. Kevin O'Keefe does it for attorneys. I'm sure there are many more. (Actually, Rick Bruner has the most complete list that I know of.)

Not only that, but ad agencies and PR firms are beginning to consult with their clients about blogs. Many of them have no clue. Hopefully, they'll turn to people like me for help.

Professional Blogging & Blog Consulting

View from the Isle

Printing Industry Commentator Dr. Joe Webb Starts New Blog at DrJoesBlog.com

Offers Observations About Trends in Printing, Publishing, and New Media

“When we look back at this period a few years from now, we will realize blogs served as incubators for many new media publishing ventures.”

Harrisville, RI (PRWEB) April 14, 2005 -- Printing industry consultant, futurist, and commentator Dr. Joe Webb announced the availability of his blog, www.DrJoesBlog.com, focused on the discussion of printing, publishing, and new media trends.

“Blogs have achieved mainstream status in relatively short time. They have become essential for executives and decision-makers who want to stay on top of news and opinion for new actionable ideas for their industry and are looking for a competitive edge,” said Dr. Webb. “When we look back at this period a few years from now, we will realize blogs served as incubators for many new media publishing ventures.”

Penn Media converts 50 email newsletters to Blogs

Rick E. Bruner's Business Blog Consulting: Penn Media Converts 50 Email Newsletters to Blogs

Mokena, IL Penn Media announced today that it will publish fifty of its flagship owned and operated e-zines as Blogs, positioning them as one of the largest publishers of consumer trade blogs. It has contracted with Pheedo, Inc. to guide them through the evolution and provide RSS and Weblog advertising services.

Bye Bye Email?

Rick E. Bruner's Business Blog Consulting: iMedia Connection: Bye Bye Email?

Speakers at a recent Blog Business Summit believe blogs are replacing email as an effective two-way dialog tool.Going forward from the recent Blog Business Summit in Seattle, two powerful messages have been reverberating through the marketing world:

1. Blog feeds are rapidly replacing email as a form of proactive marketing communications
2. Marketers wishing to post their own blogs should not approach the form as another one-way communications medium, but should plan for their blogs to offer two-way dialog.

Business Blog Consulting

Rick E. Bruner's Business Blog Consulting:
"A new seminar on business blogging: 'Blogging Goes Mainstream: New Media For Corporate Growth.' Cost: $125."

HBS What a Blog Can Do for Your Small Business

Harvard Business School

Article at About.com
excerpts:
The blogging movement is picking up speed with the launch of blogs on our About.com network and the purchase of blog software company Pyra Labs to Google. More companies are experimenting with the blog environment. Will blogging become the next mainstream application like email? Will business blogs improve your business?

What does Blogging Provide to Small Business?
-Blog software is easy to use. Simply write your thoughts, link to resources, and publish to your blog, all at the push of a few buttons. Blog software companies such as, Movable Type, Blogger.com and Radio Userland all offer easy blogging tools to get started.
-Blogging is a low-cost alternative to having a web presence. For small business owners without the time to learn web html or the money to hire a designer/developer, blogging offers an inexpensive method to get your company's name out on the Internet.
-Updating the weblog is a much quicker process than contacting a web designer with changes or doing the coding and uploading yourself.
-Business blogs provide your small business with a chance to share your expertise and knowledge with a larger audience. A powerful benefit for consultants and knowledge workers. Examples of Business Blogs

Gizmodo is a weblog about everything about gadgets and gizmos for those who want to remain on the cutting edge of consumer electronics. As a web magazine, Gizmodo is quickly building a specialized audience in consumer electronics with an advertising business model.
Research Buzz is an excellent resource tool for Internet research. An information provider, Research Buzz provides advertising and a special paid edition of their newsletter.
Joel on Software is a blog that displays Joel Spolsky's knowledge and views on software development. The blog acts as a method for Joel to highlight his expertise and promote his small business, Fog Creek Software.
Jupiter Research, a top business market research company has a blog for each company analyst. The weblog provides analysts with the means to connect with their audience on a regular basis.
Loosetooth.com Shop Blog, by Brandy Agerbeck, is an online art shop blog that provide customers with a way to get to know the store owner. This blog is an e-commerce site with buy and shop options.
MacroMedia the software company provides a customer service blog for users and staff to share solutions in an organized fashion.
Blogs do have a downside. Blogging does not provide the functionality of web pages, has limits for e-commerce solutions and can be time-consuming with regular posts. But with minimal costs, it maybe advantageous to start blogging and position your business early. Is your small business blog ready?
Other Guides:
Anatomy of a Blog
A Blog Can Help Your Business
Business Blog Resources

Small Business Trends

excerpt:
As you might expect, Jay's blog is very good at providing marketing tips and advice to small businesses. Even compared with other marketing blogs it is especially useful. It is written in a clear and succinct style. All the information packs a punch.This blog excels, however, in the way it is being used by Jay as a two-way vehicle. This is where a blog leaves a traditional website in the dust. A traditional website is a one-way conversation. Rarely if ever do you get a chance to receive input from a site visitor, other than perhaps taking an eCommerce order or a newsletter subscription. In fact, many traditional websites actually discourage communication and interaction, by making it hard to find contact information. Not so with a blog. And Jay has figured that out. Jay uses his blog to expand his knowledge base, to get fresh ideas and thinking from others. He tells me that one recent post, "Marketing a big ticket item," had just such an effect:"After making the post, I heard from other experts in this area who added their comments to my post. Many of their points were good ones ... and ones I never would have thought of. As a result I came away from the exercise with more valuable information that I could end up using with my small business clients."Another example of the two-way mode is for networking. For example, Jay says that for years he admired from afar the work of Robert Bly, the copywriting legend. He'd read his books and incorporated Bly's concepts into his consulting work. Then one day, he commented on a post on Bly's blog. He was surprised and, of course, pleased to get an email back. Bly had visited his blog and liked some of his posts. From there the two started emailing. The blog played a pivotal role in establishing a networking contact -- a contact that wouldn't have had a 1-in-1000 chance of occurring in the absence of blogs. Jay sees blogs as playing a crucial role for the small business owner: "I see many small business owners who suffer from isolation. Without a host of cube-mates or peers discuss key ideas with, these executives can sometimes operate in a vacuum." There's a lot to like about this blog. Anyone, no matter how experienced they think they are, and no matter how good they fancy themselves at marketing, will find some useful tip at Smart Marketing.My favorite tip? I liked the post about how to write a brochure. Among other things, I learned "always use captions with photos."