Robert Scoble posted about corporate fear of blogging.

I had this fear at one time. I kept an anonymous blog that was very impersonal and only gave out very vague details when I posted about technical issues or consulting related issues. Then Sagestone started their own blogs. Since then, I still keep a separate blog for my personal stuff, but I also blog there as I have relevent technical content to post there. I keep my football predictions off of there, since I doubt many people reading it really care about that.

But will I lead someone from there back here? Potentially. I haven't had a reason to yet, but if something comes up that I have a reason, I will. A couple of clients know about my personal blog, and they visit every now and then.

Now, how do I know that Sagestone supports my blogging habit? (Yes, this is an addiction!) Keith Brophy, our CEO is blogging (Robert, if you're reading, here's another CEO who's blogging!). He's just starting out, but it was the pressure of the employees (who made the blog happen in the first place) that convinced him to start. Personally, I think it's great. We are a small organization, but most employees (let alone customers) don't get a chance to sit down and talk to Keith. He's been in the business for a while, started his own (successful) business, and has lots of experiences to share. Plus, he was named Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year this year!

I think Scoble makes some good points, so let's take a look at some of the ponits.

1. People don't trust corporations. He's right. And big customers don't trust consulting companies. As a consulting company, anything we can do to give a personal touch is a good thing. On top of that, while consulting companies sell "the company" to clients, in reality, it's the people who keep them coming back. And to be honest, it's up to the people originally involved in selling the deal to make the potential client comfortable with us. For example, on my current project, we got a full development cycle contract because two of us took a week to go onsite and convince them that not only did we know what we were doing, but that we were the right fit to help them shape and build their vision.

Now, imagine if they had a way to read about us, not from what our sales team tells them, but from what we write. Not our resume, but what we post to our blog. They could see what types of things we have worked on, and get a feel for how passionate we are about what we do. I think that would make clients much more comfortable with us from day one.

5. Blogs build customer evangelists. I agree. Providing good services will get people to talk about what you're doing. We're doing some cool stuff right now behiind the scenes with Tourney Logic. Eventually, I hope to share some of those things. I think some of our ideas are very cool, and have some potential. Of course, there's issues with that - what happens if someone else takes your ideas before you can build it? For existing products, I think getting feedback on a blog (see Scoble's #2) on what we are doing with the Tourney Pool Manager would be great! Once things calm down, and we have a solid direction (meaning we can talk a little more freely), I think Tourney Logic should start a blog of our own. I'll work on that one.

Anyway, I don't have a fear of blogging. My company supports me.