Why did I start to blog? It was 2005, I was curious, I started a blog. I said nothing amazing. I think I reported on my current interests, talked about the weather, my travels (to San Francisco), and not much else.
Why did you start to blog? Because you were curious? Because you wanted to interact with customers? Because your boss told you to?
I remember the story told in Naked Conversations by Robert Scoble and Shel Israel about Microsoft’s tech evangelist, Lenn Pryor, and his vision for an inside Microsoft blog.
Pryor relates:
[Channel 9] is derived from the United Airlines (UA) open audio channel, on which passengers can listen to pilots during take-offs, flights, and landings. Pryor knew it well, because that Channel 9 had helped him cure his fear of flying:
‘I had this terrible relationship with United Airlines and its product. I was scared to death of their product even though I had to use it for business and no one was doing anything about making me feel better about them or their product. Sound familiar?’ Pryor asked, smiling impishly at his own metaphor. Pryor said he cured his fear of flying by learning about the life of a pilot: ‘The more I could understand him, the more I could feel that his best interests were my best interests. I don’t think there’s any better way to describe how people feel about Microsoft than how poeple feel who are afraid to fly.’
Microsoft, Pryor and the Channel 9 team decided, should build its own Channel 9. His idea was to ‘just share our lives with people and then they’ll see we’re human and they’ll trust us.’
I love this anecdote. It describes to me perfectly what most blogs are supposed to be. I challenge anyone building their own blog to try and become their own “Channel 9″ and to let people see that you are human and someone to trust.
Hey, it worked for Microsoft!
