March 2006

In the time honoured tradition of all 12-Step Programs everywhere, here’s my version of how to make it work as a business blogger (with apologies to Alcoholics Anonymous) We admitted we were clueless that our lives had become unfathomable Came to believe that a blogger greater than ourself could restore us to sanity Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the blogosphere as we understand it Made a searching and fearless inventory of our non-creative thinking Admitted to the blogosphere to ourselves and a sympathetic blogger just how clueless we really are Were entirely ready to have the blogosphere strip us of all vestiges of self-centred mainstream media/ad agency/PR vanity Humbly asked the blogosphere to remove our vanity, replacing it instead with masses of link love, insightful thinking and an understanding of decommodification Made a list of all bloggers we’d insulted (starting with Scoble), and became willing to understand that these people really can add value to our lives Made useful comments on such people’s blogs wherever possible, except where to do so would be blatant link baiting (subtle’s OK) or downright snarkiness Continued to post deep, meaningful and occasionally insightful posts and when out of order or mindlessly confusing, promptly apologise and correct Sought through RSS to find new ways to add value to the communities we serve Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to help anyone kind enough to leave comments on our posts, practicing the principles of community in both our online and offline lives Does that work for you? I’m sort of on Step 8/9 at the moment.