Scoble on "fear of blogging"
Robert Scoble, who is a prolific blogger and an interesting and informed Microsoft employee, posted some comments, titled Fear of Blogging, on his blog some time back in which he laid out his rationale for why companies should encourage its employees to blog. The ideas in that post became a part of a on-going discussion that I've carried on with David Steele for a while now, a discussion that I've mentioned before here.

I've been hesitant to link to Scoble because he is so diligent about tracking down links to his site and some bloggers so covet getting a mention at his site that they link to him gratuitously. Although I wouldn't mind that kind of exposure, I haven't wanted to "suck up" to him just to get a mention on his blog or his blog links site. But it's getting harder and harder not to link to him because I am increasingly finding things there that I want to link to, so I've decided to just "get over it" and go ahead and post a link.

Scoble's point that having a real give-and-take conversation with your constituency is the best way to establish and maintain a relationship with your customers strikes me as patently true. Yes, it entails risk, but as one activist organization says, "Silence=death."

- posted by Perry @ 12:50 PM