Marketing Profs published an article last week titled Storytelling for Leaders by Evelyn Clark.

Great leaders know that workers need more than lofty mission statements and industry buzz words. To understand and appreciate what their organization stands for, workers need to hear about its people, its values and its history.

I’m working on a chapter on business/leadership storytelling and [...]

In the current issue of Newsweek: Blogging
With The Boss’s Blessing.
Until recently, the thought of employees blabbing freely to the masses about their work on company time — without the suits from PR hovering over them to stay “on message” — would have created panic in the executive suite. But in the past year, employee blogs [...]

In the online edition of Business Week from earlier this month: Wikis’ Winning Ways

You may have heard of Weblogs, but chances are wikis haven’t hit your radar yet. Both are rapidly evolving examples of what some call social software — programs that foster a connection to other people and, if they work well, a thriving [...]

This week I drafted a chapter with the working title, Showing community involvement in which I profile two blog posts: Youth baseball sponsorship by Ray Cox at Northfield Construction Company, posted in July, 2003. Tree donation by Deb Knecht at Knecht’s Nurseries and Landscaping, posted in April, 2004. I’ll likely add more [...]

Dan Carlson, the chief of police for the City of Eden Prairie, MN now has a weblog he’s calling Chief Blogger. His boss, City Manager Scott Neal, has been a weblog client for two years now with his popular Blog from City Hall.

I don’t know of any other municipality in the country (continent? hemisphere? world?) [...]

New non-profit client: the Northfield Downtown Development Corporation (NDDC). Executive Director Ross Currier and board chair Dan Bergeson have had one or more blogs on their site for a while but now want to make more effective use of them.

I’m not sure where the term “Hyperlocal Journalism” originated but it’s starting to be used to describe the kind of local blogging we’re doing on Northfield.org. Last week, I used the weblog to cover the rising waters of the Cannon River over the course of three days and it drew the attention of Len [...]

Yesterday I met with Randolph Jennings (aka Randy Jennings), a friend and colleague here in Northfield who has book publishing experience. He gave me lots of feedback and several good ideas and we now plan to meet weekly to review the previous week’s writing. My goal is to write at least one hour per weekday. [...]

Last week I initiated an online discussion (via Northfield.org’s ISSUES list that I’m moderating) about getting public wi-fi access for all of downtown Northfield. The city of Chaska, MN was in the news last week for this. A colleague, Bob Courchaine of Northfield Internetworking, is now in a position (literally) to do this as [...]

I’m in Duluth for the US round of the World Trials Championship, taking photos and blogging for the organizers and the US Montesa importer, Martin Belair (a website/weblog client). I helped World Round USA set up a high-speed wireless connection at the Spirit Mountain lodge last weekend and that’s turned out to be a big [...]

Washington Post: Microsoft’s Gates Touts Blogging as Business Tool

Gates described to his audience, which included Warren Buffett, Jeff Bezos, Michael Dell, Carly Fiorina, Barry Diller and other top business executives, how blogs worked and suggested that they could be used as a tool for businesses to communicate with customers. “It’s getting away from the [...]