Yesterday, I was invited to do a quick presentation to an internal group of IBMers on why I blog and the value that I've received from blogging at IBM. I was limited to just 10 minutes, so I had to do something that was sweet, short, and to the point. There are so many stories that I've told before that it was hard to pick something that could be impactful.
I think I first fell "in love" with blogs when an amazing connection happened while at a customer site. You see, I was trying to get some integration going, but couldn't make it work. A colleague that happened to be working at the same customer, saw the blog entry and helped me get it done the next day! You can see the whole story here or check out this video:
Another of my favorite stories about blogs, was when I got to know Alan Lepofsky through one of my blog entries. The story is all about how blogs help me gain knowledge and just share knowledge. You can see that story here. I'm also a big believer that blogs can even help you grow your career. John Pape agrees and he has created a great post on 5 Ways Blogging Can Help Your Career.
So I decided to take an approach where I mention how I started (I started as an anonymous blogger back in '06) and the barrier of entry I faced. I've mentioned this before, so you may know that I **was** a firm believer of knowledge is power (more on this later). From there, I transitioned and told the story of how I was a consultant at the same time doing the very same thing that George Clooney does in Up In The Air. This helped me describe my pain point: disorganized, too many emails, too many things going on, etc... I believe that's a pain point that a lot of people can relate to.
It's no secret that IBM has empowered its employees to blog and use other social media tools. To me, blogs have resulted in tremendous benefits such as reduced email, increased productivity, career growth and more (slide 6). To IBM, there have been even more amazing benefits (slide 7). So far, I've tracked more than $6 million in closed sales opportunities thanks to my blog!
What I've come to realize is that Knowledge is not Power, but rather Knowledge Shared Is Power. In fact, I even found a site which gives the mathematical formula to show you this is true. Using all those data points together, I created this presentation which is perfect for 10 minutes.
I think it's clear that empowering your employees is key to becoming a Social Business, which is exactly what I talked about in the previous blog entry.
I would like to know... why do **you** blog?