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Counterpoint to my "thinking out loud" thought

Neil McIntosh makes a point that serves as a sensible balancer to my thought the other day about the importance of thinking out loud. Er, you don’t really want to think everything out loud:

This is why I’m always so sceptical about the power of “business blogging” – I simply don’t think any sensible, successful business is going to spill the beans on what’s really going on. It’s frequently either too dull, or to messy, to expose. What would the shareholders think, let alone the customers, if every fruitless sales pitch or failed technologcial experiment was shown off to the world?

Antony Mayfield

One response to “Counterpoint to my "thinking out loud" thought”

  1. Linda Avatar
    Linda

    I don’t agree that the ‘dull’ or ‘messy’ stuff can’t become thought-provoking, informative or entertaining blog fodder.

    When something goes wrong or there is a clash of personalities or approaches involving your business, surely this can make for some of the most engaging material?

    You may not want to blog on exactly what you thought of a client or supplier with whom the relationship has become problematic (or perhaps an intricate understanding of the libel laws means you do) but you can blog about the ‘issues’ that relationship has thrown up, what you have learned from it and ask what other people think of the situation, surely?

    If you’re prepared to stand up and be counted for what you believe in, in these instances and ‘be yourself’ doesn’t that set you apart from your competitors?

    Potential customers can see exactly who they are considering dealing with. If they don’t like your ethos, or points of view expressed in a blog, and decide not to get in touch then that is everyone’s time saved, isn’t it?

    As an example, I posted about ‘Women in business, we must be comedians!’ and my business partner was worried we could look too ‘strident.’ But what is there to worry about? If anyone reading objects strongly to what I said then they wouldn’t be ideal clients now would they?

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