Just one day away from the big event and I just got into the offices here at Fleishman Hillard on L Street. Unfortunately, I have been offline for the past 21 hours due to some WiFi issues and the five hours I spent with JetBlue. I have another long post to share with you shortly, but in the meantime, I have just received another reply to our Beyond Email Interview from Debbie Weil who is fresh off a trip to Toronto for Mesh where she spoke on a panel with my friend Tara Hunt of Riya.

Debbie is the author of the forthcoming “The Corporate Blogging Book: Absolutely Everything You Need to Know to Get It Right” to be published on Aug. 3rd, 2006 by Penguin Portfolio. You can download a free chapter from the book’s blog.

Debbie Weil
Author ~ Consultant ~ Blogger
New meta site! http://www.debbieweil.com
Book: http://www.TheCorporateBloggingBook.com
Blog: http://www.BlogWriteForCEOs.com
Newsletter: http://www.WordBiz.com/signup.php

Q1 - What are the 5 Blogs you can’t live without?

Steve Rubel’s www.MicroPersuasion.com
BusinessWeek’s www.BlogSpotting.net
Halley Suitt: http://halleyscomment.blogspot.com/
Dilbert Blog: http://dilbertblog.typepad.com/
Hugh MacLeod’s Gaping Void: http://www.gapingvoid.com/

I like blogs that are really well written, funny and also informative. Quality of the writing is my #1 criterion, but that’s just me.

Q2 - Tell us a little more about you and your company.

I’m a corporate blogging consultant and a new author. My favorite gigs are in-house training for big companies like Edward Jones and Wells Fargo. It was gratifying to see Wells Fargo take one of my recommendations — to launch a blog related to history — and run with it. Their blog commemorating the 100th anniversary of the San Francisco Earthquake & Fire is here.

Q3 - What does Beyond Blogging mean to you? What does it look like?

Beyond Blogging means getting beyond “cool.”

It’s a way of saying that social media is going to seep into our lives on a daily, practical level. We’ll have a computer built into the door of the fridge and we’ll scan our RSS feeds telling us which local store has the best price today on fresh shrimp. Or where to nab a cheap ticket for a quick trip to the Caribbean.

We’ll search blogs and podcasts and wikis before making any big purchase decision. It’ll just be second nature. I guess that’s what Web 2.0 really means. We’re still in the early adopter phase. It will take a few years. We have to get beyond “cool.”

Q4 - Do you have any sage advice for a communications professional trying to work with a client that wants to Blog? What are the 3 most important things they need to look out for?

1. Does the client have a genuine desire to maintain a quality blog with interesting writing and useful information. In other words, can they convince the client that this is another way of marketing - not a publicity stunt or a new publishing channel for press releases.

2. The client wants someone else to “do it for them.” Long-term you’ve gotta write your own blog. If it’s not a senior exec who can be a thought leader, the client may have a really smart, connected employee who can do it.

3. This doesn’t require a nine-month project plan to get started. Just do it.

Q5 - What’s the one trend in communications that isn’t being picked up on, or understood, by mainstream communicators?

Not sure what you mean by mainstream communicators. MSM? The biggest trend I see is that great content, commentary, ideas, creativity, etc. are bubbling up from below. I.e. from nonpaid professionals. Some of them are 17-year-olds publishing clever videos to YouTube. One example is the bowiechick video demonstrating the cool things she can do with her Logitech webcam:

This bottom-up explosion of creativity is threatening both mainstream media’s control of news delivery as well as our traditional model of packaged, controlled advertising. The line between editorial, advertising and entertainment is getting blurred. And it sure is more fun and interesting.

Q6 - What are some of your past Blog posts you would like to highlight for our audience? Why?

Bill Gates hires me for CEO blog coaching and to ghostwrite his blog! (My best April Fool’s joke ever)

Time still the top Fear Factor when it comes to corporate blogging (Based on a survey I did of the 17,500 subscribers to my e-newsletter)

What REALLY happened behind Kryptonite’s blogging fiasco and what it means for corporate blogging (My interview with Kryptonite’s PR manager debunking the notion that Kryptonite ignored the buzz in the blogosphere and gotten bitten badly because of it)

Q7 - Discuss briefly what you’ll be sharing with our audience at the Beyond Blogging event.

- That the term “corporate blogging” is not an oxymoron.
- That blogs are really just next-generation Web sites
- That corporate blogs have lots of practical applications. Google uses its official corporate blog at as a complement to traditional PR, for example.

Categories: Blogging, Speakers, Corporate Blogging