Thu 14 Feb 2008
Can We Talk? Seeking a Blog-Dialogue or Blogalogue.
Posted by jtmcarthur under Collaboration, Communities, Product development, Storage and Data Management
[2] Comments
My goal when I started this blog almost a year ago was to:
- Create a resource for entrepreneurs and inventors
- Have a conversation with those entrepreneurs (or entrepreneur wannabes) on strategies, tactics, and best practices.
On the second goal, I feel like I’ve fallen short. There’s not enough dialogue.
Today, I had a Facebook conversation with Michael Goff, who is a Marketing Manager at V.i. Labs. I mentioned the high number of times my blog came up in conversation, and relatively few number of comments on my blog (deleted spam and slam, not withstanding).
Michael offered two possible reasons:
- I require readers to register and sign in before commenting.
- I don’t ask enough questions.
By the way, Michael says my blog is a “must read” in his Google reader, which is incredibly flattering. I think a lot of Michael. But Michael hasn’t posted comments either, so on the “register and sign-in” issue, I’m interested in what people think. The spam problem is non-trivial, but I’m open to trying it. What do you think? If you don’t want to comment here, feel free to email me at jmcarthur@waldentech.com.
On the “asking more questions” issue, well, I just did. We’ll see what happens.
And speaking of questions, I’m extending my thanks to Taylor Allis, from Sun Microsystems, who does know how to ask a question and did so in a comment on my recent blog post here and in his blog entry here.
I’ll respond to his question in more detail in my next post.
Well, I have to comment now, don’t I? I do agree with your concern over blog spam – do you have the option to approve comments before they appear? That may be one way to get a better sense of how big the spam issue is while making it easier for readers to comment (although it does add another step for you).
On the matter of questions – I do think readers are more likely to comment if you solicit their opinions. So many blogs offer either opinion or thought leadership without really engaging readers in a conversation. So why not do what we do face-to-face when we’re trying to jump start a conversation? – ask questions.
Great blog John – I look forward to commenting again soon!
Michael,
Thanks for the note. I’ll admit, I hadn’t looked at the options on comments for a long time. I just went through them and removed, for now, the requirement to log in before commenting. We’ll see how that changes things. And, as I said, I’ll start asking more questions.
John