Disney, as reported by Tom Siebert of Online Media Daily, has actually succeeded in bringing down a blog that posted audio files from the super right wing Bay area ABC affiliate radio show KSFO.  The blogger and media critic “Spocko” of the blog “Spocko’s Brain” reported on comments made from guests who support torture,  reported that the station sent out a call to hang New York Times editor Bill Keller and other journalists and a recommendation that Sears’ Diehard battery be attached to an African-American’s testicles.

Disney’s claim is that there were copyright issues in posting the audio files and so they got a court order to either take the files off the site or bring down the site all together which happened; Spocko claims “fair use” of the copyrighted material which is a battle that is just beginning the courts.

 

I am proud to say that Creative Concepts has successfully gotten the Bigelow Tea Blog off the ground.

Why is the blog successful? Cause many players from the ground up to the top have a hand in the blog. The blog is honest (and so is Creative Concepts with full disclosure on the about page) and insightful from bringing health tips and info about tea to the co-presidents message about her life as a Bigelow family member, as a female running a business, as a person loving her job and career.

And please let’s not forget about Bob, VP Sales and Marketing…he has brought on some of his heros to help support Bigelow Green tea in the marketplace…sports greats like Joe Torre and Phil and Chris Simms not only talk about Bigeow on Imus in the Morning and do photo shoots for ads but they choose green tea for health reasons and choose Bigelow tea cause the company makes a high quality tea that people can count on (check out the pictures where Joe and Phil recently visited Fairfield, Conn. headquarters of Bigelow).

There are many more stories to come from Bigelow…this blog shows that within any company there are many personalities and many interests and all can successfully fit under one roof…all can come together to produce a product they are proud of…all can blog about it in a way where we can learn, share and enjoy all that this company offers.

Take a look and enjoy!

So what is a flog? It is a fake blog (writers from PR firms who pretend to be blogging honestly about a product or company in order to start a buzz) created by the geniuses at marketing and pr firms. Just kidding about the genius part. Edelman PR, one of the largest firms in the world and most recently Zipatoni have mislead their clients into believing that they know the best way to get exposure and get new clients and they know what is going on with emerging technology and viral marketing…for this Wal-Mart and Sony pay the big bucks.

Well if any of these men and women from these firms took the time to truly learn about blogging and its effectiveness within its communities and if these men and women were clear about doing business ethically, then the word flog would never exist.

Corporate blogging is a highly effective communication and marketing tool. eHobbies is a toy site. Once they created a blog, sales increased by 2-4% which is the trend for retail sites with blogs. There are many reasons to blog for business: increased search engine rankings, new clients get a feel for the business, reaching out to past and present customers…the list goes on and on. And yes PR and Marketing firms can be involved but only if there is full disclosure!!

As with everything else in life, there is no shortcut. Success comes from honest hard work.

Read about Sony’s flog debacle here.

Take a look at this report from Technorati about the State of the Blogosphere as of October 2006.  They are tracking 57 million blogs where the age and post frequency of the blog matters plus they have made global notations of the bloggers.  Check it out.

Well, I have done it again…I have had a gap with the entries but I don’t want to write unless I have some news or some interesting thoughts so today I am writing about news and I am writing about Creative Concepts.

Constantin Basturea’s blog reports a list called PR meets WWW.  This is a fully detailed list of pr agencies and consultants worldwide and their blogs along with some interesting entries.  Creative Concepts was mentioned so thank you for that!

Also take note, Techcrunch is coming to town (NYC) for a Meetup and Creative Concepts is their communications sponsor.  While the event is already sold out, I am looking forward to meeting all of those who are ready to party in bed in nyc with techcrunch!!

And for those of you out at the blog business summit in Seattle, look for Sabine Kirsten, Emerging Tech Director for Creative Concepts.  She is enjoying the conference and will be attending the Blogher meetup tonight.  Ask her about all of our corporate blogging projects…we have lots to share!

Being in the middle of setting up corporate blogs has afforded me some interesting experiences.  So far this week I have had to temporarily bring down a site because of hosting issues, I have had to meet with an IT department who were a joy, I had to fend off a designer who is young, easy to anger, and very unprofessional, and I met two new clients who want a blog and don’t know where to begin.  My conclusion?  Blogging has hit the maintstream and now it seems that it is business as usual (doesn’t everyone deal with issues like these every day?).

One of our clients, The Orthodontic Center, had an interesting task for us to accomplish. Dr. Christie, the Director, wanted a website that not only gave out meaningful information about his practice but he wanted to share his research (he is internationally known for developing the Facial Print technology) in addition to finding new patients both near and far.

We at Creative Concepts had the perfect solution. We created a website that had a home page and 2 static pages (about us and “how we keep you smiling” which explains the Facial Print technology) plus we included 2 blogs that were seamless with the static pages.

The first blog titled, “we are talking,” is for the parents of the patients or the adult patients to read the latest news and also share their comments and/or questions. Also on this page, Dr. Christie can reveal his latest research and his staff can relay tips for the kids and parents. This page helps any new family feel comfortable with the process of braces because they can speak with The Orthodontic Center without going into the office….they can discover more on this page compared with many typical static pages of most websites because the information is always evolving because it is a blog.

The second blog is for the kids (the design is focused on the kids too). Kids are blogging and sharing their thoughts about getting braces plus their news about school, music, sports….this is a place where the kids can talk if they are getting nervous about getting braces…this is a place where they can make friends which may end up being the biggest marketing tool around.

We are very excited about this site and how blogging is being used as a communication and marketing tool. This is truly an example of how any business can use blogging for many purposes.

What the heck is TQM?  It stands for Total Quality Management and it was very big in the 80’s.  The “quality” way of doing business started in Japan..it took the US awhile to catch on but when it did, all companies wanted to get on board.  My father, while he didn’t invent TQM, he was the spokesperson for it in many circles.  He, David Luther, was the big guy who represented Corning Inc. around the world and talked about all the processes put into place by the company and how each and every one of those steps were effective.  Effectivness lead to a happy customer which lead to more orders which of course increased revenue!

Some of the elements of TQM consisted of departments working in teams to solve problems.  These teams were also asked to make present systems more efficient and effective.  If a memeber of the team wasn’t producing, the team would figure out what to do with that member, not the management.  Peer pressure lead people to a higher production rate.

There was also a big element of listening to the customer and hearing what their needs were and where the good and the bad rested.  Companies were taking time out to meet with their customer and the customer was both internal, the employees, and external, the buyer of the product or service and the vendors who partnered with the company.

Listening, communicating, and acting on the information put TQM ahead of the curve in its day.  My father was TQM and I am the daughter of TQM.

Blogging is very similar to TQM.  Bloggers are big communicators: they talk and they listen.  While every blog works on its own, bloggers can come together to update and/or correct information…Dan Rather’s story was blown away by bloggers and hence his career was down the tubes, Dell was also affected by the blogging community as well.  The blogging community also polices itself so peer pressure affects what people say about products, services or ideas…honesty must rule or you will be eliminated from the active blogging world. 

Blogging is a huge tool available for corporate bloggers who want to listen to their customers and act on their wishes.  If a car isn’t selling, go to the blogs to see what the car enthusiasts are saying (Chrysler does this often).  If a vendor isn’t quite working out, check out the blogs for what others are saying or check out their blog to see what the corporate culture is like.

Blogging is an available tool that may be new but it is effective.  Why not use all of the tools necessary to do better business?  This is what the followers of TQM did and now this is what we can do through corporate blogging.

Had yet another interesting day yesterday when the power went out (for about 24 hours).  You would think that I would have been happy to have a forced vacation for a day, you would have thought that it would have been nice to sit in the dark with the quiet laying softly like an old comforter, you would have thought I would have taken the time to do the unusual like reading a novel or cleaning out old papers…but no, I froze at the window waiting for the power truck to save the day.

I love my clients.  I love my computer.  I love lights!

As of last night, my very cool blog design has disappeared.  Where has it gone?  My server guys didn’t move it, Sabine, my tech director, is searching for it and Vikki, the designer, hasn’t touched it.  I hope the mystery will be solved by the end of the day!!  Maybe Wordpress has the key…we shall see.