Blogs for business
The IT world has more emerging technologies and acronyms than you can shake a stick at, and more are being added nearly every day. Two of these technologies, blogs and wiki, have reached a point of usability and maturity that should make you think about adding them to your organization’s technology arsenal.
How can they help your organization?
n According to webopedia.com, a blog is “a Web page that serves as a publicly accessible personal journal for an individual. Typically updated daily, blogs often reflect the personality of the author.”
n Webopedia.com defines wiki as, “A collaborative Web site comprised of the perpetual collective work of many authors. Similar to a blog in structure and logic, a wiki allows anyone to edit, delete or modify content that has been placed on the Web site using a browser interface.”
n If we adjust the definition of a blog slightly without making any significant changes to the underlying technology we get a “regularly updated online journal of information.” Add wiki functionality to your blog and you end up with a “regularly updated online journal of information with conversation history.”
n Add a blog with wiki to your intranet and you can eliminate all of the back-and-forth e-mails between staff members trying to solve an ongoing problem and instead house the content in an organized, searchable knowledge base. Adding a blog could make your Web site a resource for customers by sharing knowledge and expertise on a range of subjects.
n All of the technology required to run blogs (with or without wiki) is available at no cost on the Internet.
Source: Jason Reljac, Schneider Downs
