Gapingvoid

Little blue guy holding a spear The Daily Email - sign up for insights & inspiration!
Red hand holding a pen
Home / Uncategorized / the porous membrane: why corporate blogging works.

the porous membrane: why corporate blogging works.

zzzzzz7654229.jpg
The other day somebody asked me to explain why corporate blogging works. Sure, we know it’s the hot new thing and people are paying attention to it (including big media)… but why?
Why does it work? Seriously.
So I drew the diagram above.
1. In Cluetrain parlance, we say “markets are conversations”. So the diagram above represents your market, or “The Conversation”. That is demarkated by the outer circle “y”.
2. There is a smaller, inner circle “x”.
3. So the entire market, the “conversation” is seperated into two distinct parts, the inner area “A” and the outer area “B”.
4. Area “A” represents your company, the people supplying the market. We call that “The Internal Conversation”.
5. Area “B” represents the people in the market who are not making, but buying. Otherwise know as the customers. We call that “The External Conversation”.
6. So each market from a corporate point of view has an internal and external conversation. What seperates the two is a membrane, otherwise known as “x”.
7. Every company’s membrane is different, and controlled by a host of different technical and cultural factors.
8. Ideally, you want A and B to be identical as possible, or at least, in sync. The things that A is passionate about, B should also be passionate about. This we call “alignment”. A good example would be Apple. The people at Apple think the iPod is cool, and so do their customers. They are aligned.
9. When A and B are no longer aligned is when the company starts getting into trouble. When A starts saying their gizmo is great and B is telling everybody it sucks, then you have serious misalignment.
10. So how do you keep misalignment from happening?
11. The answer lies in “x”, the membrane that seperates A from B. The more porous the membrane, the easier it is for conversations between A and B, the internal and external, to happen. The easier for the conversations on both side of membrane “x” to adjust to the other, to become like the other.
12. And nothing, and I do mean nothing, pokes holes in the membrane better than blogs. You want porous? You got porous. Blogs punch holes in membranes like like it was Swiss cheese.
13. The more porous your membrane (“x”), the easier it is for the internal conversation to inform and align with the external conversation, and vice versa.
14. Not to mention it makes misalignment, if it happens, a lot easier to repair.
15. Of course this begs the question, why have a membrane “x” at all? Why bother with such a hierarchy? But that’s another story.
[AFTERTHOUGHT:] And yes, this works with internal blogs as well, poking holes in the membranes that seperate people within a corporate culture; aligning “the conversation” internally etc.
The other advantage of internal blogging is that it organises conversation into a long-term manageable form. Two people sharing ideas via blogs is a lot more permanent, viral and useful for the company than two people sharing the same information over by the watercooler.
[AFTERTHOUGHT:] Poking holes in membranes subverts hierarchies. Avast, ye scurvies etc.
[UPDATE:] Just added this post to The Hughtrain.

Comments

  2. Corporate Blogging Works

    Ever wonder why corporate blogging works? Hugh MacLeod at gapingvoid has it nailed. I’m calling this the Cliff Notes version of all the corporate blogging books now in work. Over simplification? Perhaps…..

  5. gapingvoid: why corporate blogging works.

    NOTE: This also works for educational blogging. Climb on the edutrain. Link: gapingvoid: why corporate blogging works.. why corporate blogging works. zzzzzz7654229.jpg The other day somebody asked me to explain why corporate blogging works. Sure, we kn…

  6. whereas pr and marketing types have historically referred to various assimilation and perception strategies as optics, these emergent cominglings will henceforth be known osmotics.
    I’m not sure why that diagram reminds me of grade seven sex ed. You know the sperm and egg thing. But still, that’s my peculiar brain misalignment. No biggie. Good point all the same.

  7. You forgot to draw the line representing all the lawsuits brought by A against B for talking about their products in ways that didn’t suit them. A good example would be Apple. (And Microsoft).

  8. Hugh says corporate blogging works

    What blogging does and does best is to prepare the ground and make it ready for every other kind of conversation you have with customers.

  9. On Corporate Blogging

    gapingvoid: why corporate blogging works. A very interesting and simple assessment of why corporate blogging is cool. Cool for the company. Cool for the customer. So here we are…just a bunch of cool-as-cool-can-be-cucumbers….

  10. "why corporate blogging works"

    Well, here we are, running circles around each other in a ven diagram on a site named the gaping void:…

  13. Why Corporate Blogging Works

    Hugh presents a neat theory of why corporate blogging works. His main ingredients are: the venerable concept of alignment between organization and environment; and the newer concept of market as conversation. In this post, he serves up the theory with …

  21. “nothing, pokes holes in the membrane better than blogs”, of course other channels that create communication through the membrane (like Scoble’s video camera) also help create even more holes, the more the merrier!

  22. Blogging benefits

    A friend is having real difficulty understanding the point of blogging. While showering this morning, I tried to reflect on the changes that have happened to me since I started getting seriously involved towards the end of last year. My

  25. Hi Hugh,
    Agree wholeheartedly with the idea of internal/external blogs – Ideascape – to promote more conversations. I think enterprise blogs will help create candor in the workplace and help more organizations move to a loose hierarchy.
    On the other hand, businesses have too many so-called experts that fear the dissemination of ideas.

  26. Corporate Blogging

    “Ideally, you want A and B to be identical as possible, or at least, in sync. The things that A is passionate about, B should also be passionate about. This we call “alignment”. A good example would be Apple. The people at Apple think the iPod is cool,…

  27. Hugh, this the most succinct explanation I have ever come across. It’s a thing of beauty.
    It’s not hard to understand why many corporate people feel threatened by this way of thinking. It’s just too flat, too direct. It will be very interesting to be part of the muckracking…

  28. Customer feedback, 1 to 1 marketing, Customer relationship management, expectation management. For all of these things Blogs can be a tremendous addition to a company

  30. [AFTERTHOUGHT:] Poking holes in membranes subverts hierarchies. Avast, ye scurvies etc.
    Corporate blogging is not a disruptive, chaotic act. It is a filter. The company controls what escapes. Unless you are talking about a supposedly unsanctioned blog like minimicrosoft.
    How can information purposefully disseminated by an organization subvert any heirarchies inherent in that corporate structure?

  31. Why Corporate Blogging Works

    Gapingvoid has a very simple, elegant explanation called Why Corporate Blogging Works. It explains the dynamics of corporate blogging and how it can help both the customers and the company. Marketing too often seems to be trying to convince people…

  32. Why Corporate Blogging Works

    Gapingvoid has a very simple, elegant explanation called Why Corporate Blogging Works. It explains the dynamics of corporate blogging and how it can help both the customers and the company. Marketing too often seems to be trying to convince people…

  34. Wow. So 15 points crammed full of trendy jargon to basically say that it improves the flow of information between companies and customers? Riveting stuff…
    Or have I missed the irony?

  36. It’s the Blogs, Stupid

    “Blogging is forcing firms like ours to shut up and listen.”  says Mike Manuel in the latest interview posted over Naked Conversations, formerly the Red Couch.

  37. the X membrane not pourous, but porous. Just trying to make communication easier…

  39. Excellent post – but in light of my reading of Sherky prompted by one of your earlier posts, I question whether it’s possible for the conversations to be actively “organised into a more manageable form.” This is what fake corporate blogs try to do and for which they are rightly decried.
    Secondly, doesn’t the location and porousness of the corporate membrane vary according to the particular conversation that is occurring.

  42. Hugh

    Monsieur Hugh, the profane pundit of all things Hughtrain has a good post on why corporate blogging works – with graphics no less. ‘Tis all about permeating membranes ‘twould seem. I’d try to explain it but then I’d have to

  43. Nice, memorable illustration and interesting posts… clearly a blog is a tool that lends itself to more than just Corporations.
    Request: regarding the after thought… would anyone share pointers/bkms for the novice org that has an intranet but no internal blogs… interested in exploring the viral watercooler conversation approach

  44. I recently picked up the whole blog thing and really had a hard time trying to figure out how it works. To me it still seemed pretty vague and dangerous to experiment without being sure of the possible implications the audience and the tranprency of the bloggers emotions. A recent experiment ended up with http://www.kibow.blogspot.com as a preliminary trial to get response from the neprhology community (our marketing target audience) and the general public.
    To keep the kind of conversation between A and B as consistent as can be, both have to be equally transparent and frank especially from the corporate bloggers. It is also important for the corporate blogger to be open and honest instead of using blogs as another form of publicity to reiterate the company’s sales speech. Trying to be politically correct and diplomatic about critical issues brings rise to controversy and attacks by the rest of the blogosphere after which the company loses credibility in this realm. Yet it is hard to find the balance point between transparency and confidentiality. This issue has probably been discussed a million times over yet I seem to find no panacea for it. the explanation using porosity gives a clear picture of this yet seems vague on its actual application. One comment I would like to make however is that porosity is both ways… the less you reveal or less truthful to the public, probably the less accurate the response as well… after all… we have all been trained how objective marketing messages and even news nowadays can be…
    As for the success of my little blogging adventure, I should be updating its progress and results on gaining closer communication and feedback again. Perhaps after blogging the next thing is to figure how to publicise my blog to the right target audience. After all, no eyeballs means no feedback…

  45. Internal, External Business Conversations

    Hugh writes a great post about why business blogs can help organizations improve customer connections. (Updated to later illustrate that the concept is relevant in intra-organizational discussions as well.) The metaphor is that there is a membrane that…

  46. Responding to:
    Request: regarding the after thought… would anyone share pointers/bkms for the novice org that has an intranet but no internal blogs… interested in exploring the viral watercooler conversation approach
    Al, in my opinion, the approach(es), architecture of the blogs and the dynamics that you might *coach* towards would depend upon the purpose of the internal blogs and the issues being addressed by blogging internally (beyond what might already be addressed by the intranet).
    But that’s just one person’s opinion.

  47. How corporate blogging and knowledge

    Hugh Macleod has drawn a very simple picture what has lots of words to go with it that describes the beauty of corporate blogging.
    So where is the knowledge bit?
    By breaking through the membranes that Hugh discusses help the overall communication…

  48. couple of things…better term for this may be “blogmosis” – the sharing of information between a customer/corp blog. pr and marketing types can have osmotics.
    secondly, these membranes are not one size fits all. different customers will need different conversation/sharing. that’s the beauty of a great corp blogging strategy…there can be a multitude of blogs for various customers. blogs can be the ultimate in customer personalization. depending on the business, each customer will have a blog specific to their needs and more importantly, the people who need to converse with them. any good enterprise blog software package will allow for multiple blogs that can only be accessed by “subscribed” customers.
    this may be a bit too nuts and bolts, but it seems an important distinction. a corporate blog is unlikely to be a single site dedicated to all customers. there will be a wide variety of blogs reflecting the needs of various customers. at least, that’s my view from within the corporate confines….

  49. Having spent a good chunk o’ my life studying strategic management theory and how it works or doesn’t in real life…
    I’ve concluded that most organizations: a) don’t *really* want to get the feedback that would show them that their current strategy isn’t working (perhaps more precise: don’t really want to *work* to to get that feedback); and, b) don’t know what to do with it if they do get that feedback.
    It’s the same old story… this is why CEO’s have “Yes Men.”
    I prefer the metaphor that the firm’s strategy should be seen as a theory, and that theory should be as rigorously tested as any hypothesis a scientist would test.

  50. Rockster, could not agree more to “strategy should be seen as a theory, and that theory should be as rigorously tested”!
    Add the Business Model to that and “every day, every minute” and dynamics would be required all over – just like real life should be 🙂
    Static is boring and deadly, dynamic is life itself.

  53. Shah of Soapy Detergents

    Today’s dose of NIF – News, Interesting & Funny … It’s Wictory Wednesday!

  54. Why Corporate Blogging Works

    Though a PubSub query on corporate blogging, I came across this entry on Hugh Macleod’s blog Gapingvoid. This simple discription of why corporate blogs work is right on point. Consistency of messaging, both internally and externally, is one of the…

  55. I can’t help but notice… one of the leading business purposes of blogs these days seems to be to attract the attention of Mainstream Media so that MSM will write about your blog. See Hugh’s comment in the previous post about getting the Danish media interested in English Cut.
    Nothing wrong with that as far as it goes, but it’s an obviously limited strategy. When was the last time anyone cared about a corporate web page redesign? Or a telephone installation?
    It’s much more interesting to me to think about how a company can use blogs effectively in markets where everyone already has one. It’s about the conversations, not the tools (phone/email/wiki/blog).

  57. “Static is boring and deadly, dynamic is life itself.” – sig
    Love it. It’s all about the energy and intent. If there is a corporate toe-the-line blog, as a customer you’ll know it, feel it.
    If there is action, response, change and exchange your going to be drawn into to where the good energy is. Great corporate blogs give authentic energy to the “conversation”.
    Excellent post Hugh. Thank you.

  58. Very insightful post, Hugh. As an organizational psychologist my major focus is on increasing business literacy within the inner circle (A on your diagram). This is a prerequisite for increasing the effectiveness of the “conversation” between A and B. I used to recommend “Stakeholder Conferences” as the way of improving business literacy. I’m just beginning to appreciate the power of internal corporate blogs to accomplish this goal. My next blog at http://www.TheDeevyReport.blogspot.com will elaborate on this theme…and I’ll give appropriate credit to you, Hugh, for the insights provided.
    Ed Deevy.

  60. >If the main point of your blog is to to get media >attention, Katherine, I would say you’re in >trouble 😉
    Nope. The media I care about already know who I am. They’ve been publishing and/or reading me for years.

  61. Corporate blogging

    gapingvoid: the porous membrane: why corporate blogging works. I like the diagram and explanation. Makes visual sense of something that perhaps isn’t apparent in other forms….

  64. Corporate bloggers: poking holes in membranes

    Hugh Macleod of Gaping Void explains why corporate blogging works. The key, says Macleod, is creating a “porous membrane” that enables people within the company having “internal conversations” to relate better with customers outside of the company havi…

  65. Argument for Corporate Blogging

    One of the web’s busiest blogging news organizations, Corante points to this piece that makes a cogent argument for the role of blogs in a corporate marketer’s arsenal.Considering that the Syndicate Conference will begin next Tuesday in New York, …

  66. Why Corporate Blogging Works

    If you still don’t get the value of corporate blogging. Hugh at Gaping Void explains it in 15 short points and one deep diagram. [read] tags: gaping void | hugh macleod | cluetrain | hughtrainWhat’s a tag?

  69. Business Blogs Explained

    Hugh at GapingVoid is not only one funny SOB, he’s also wicked smart. Reach him explain why blogging matters/works and you’ll see what I mean. And he’s not afraid to discuss the tough realities of blogging either. Also worth looking at: The Seven Busi…

  70. Blogs go far beyond most peoples wildest dreams. Before the end of 2006 Corporate blogs identified by a recognisable name, ie nike, will the most sought after commodity for any business that spends more than $1,000 on marketing. There will only be three blog sources of any commercial significance, with Google being the major player.
    A Commercial Blog if not owned by the business, opens up an external complaints department that any disgruntled customer can post complains onto.
    This is the fast track method for a customer to gain power and get attention. How fast would a business react to a complaint if all the customer base was aware of it?
    Once big business realises this fact, there will be a stampeed to secure original name blogs before they get into the wrong hands.
    Many companies will make overnight fortunes renting out the blogs under a maintenance fee for either redirecting blog sites to the clients main web site or to simply sanitise postings.
    Watch business move!

  72. Corporate Blogging

    NPR’s Talk of the Nation covers a touchy, relevant, evolving topic: Blogging Poses New Workplace Issues. I’m very invested in this discussion, especially since I often mention the work I do, my employer in general and cool things I’…

  74. What the heck is a blog, anyway?

    I’ve heard this question many times, so I’d like to take this time to answer what I think it is, and why I think it’s important for your business.
    If you want the official definition, read this (side note: if you think the WikiPedia is cool, and yo

  75. Goodbye Bounded Entity! How Employee Blogging Transcends and Alters Organisational Boundaries

    By Jon Froda and Jesper Bindslev, Copenhagen Business School | E-mediator
    Who are members of your PR and Corporate Communications team? And who are in effect their managers? When adopting employee blogging as a means of market communication the simpl…

  76. Blogging Campaign Doubles Sales, Disrupts Norm, Trumps Tradition

    Gapingvoid blogger Hugh Macleod worked with U.K. wine brand Stormhoek to use blogging as a means to increase sales. It worked. Big time, doubling sales in less than 12 months. The increases didn’t come from the hundred or so…

  77. Marketing Buzz Is A Conversation And Blogs Are Its Voices: The Global Conversation Is On

    The Blogosphere allows people to search for answers, to challenge and to build on established theories. It gives a person a voice in the global conversation, which is unrestrained by national borders, although some governments do tightly control the us…

  78. A promising week for a new corporate blogging service

    Have you ever launched a product or service before? It’s a lot of fun and it’s also a bit scary. I think it must be like a rocket scientist waiting to see their rocket clear the launch pad. It’s also…

Trackbacks

  10. […] Blogging is an essential way for businesses to keep their customers informed AND interested in new products or updates. When connected to social networks, business blogs can have a powerful reach. A blog can pull potential customers to your site and eventually into the sales process. The death of the blog has been predicted for many years; Luis Suarez wrote a great blog, “Making Business Sense of Social Media and Social Networking – Is Blogging Dead?” that I highly recommend you take the time to read. I especially like is reference to the May 2005 article by Hugh MacLeod, “The porous membrane: why corporate blogging works.“ […]

  21. […] With customers, it is less about marketing strategies to sell a service or product and more about asking and listening and working with those customers. Hugh  McLeod (2005) introduced the porous membrane that creates an environment of direct communication between all parties . Check it out in  the porous membrane: why corporate blogging works. | gapingvoid. […]

  22. […] With customers, it is less about marketing strategies to sell a service or product and more about asking and listening and working with those customers. Hugh  McLeod (2005) introduced the porous membrane that creates an environment of direct communication between all parties . Check it out in  the porous membrane: why corporate blogging works. | gapingvoid. […]

man is not an island

We can’t be alone in the struggle. We want revolution. We want to bring emotion to the forefront. We want to remember what we’re doing …

built for creativity

How conducive is your space to your creativity? We’re not asking how many bean bags or espresso machines you have, we want to know how functional …

Are you ready to work with us?

Contact Us