Thursday, September 24. 2009Is blogging a waste of my time?Comments
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Don't feel like you always have to blog just about sas, tie in more of your life passions and hey if its a Friday have a "Friday Funday" post on just one of those passions. If that wont fly at your work try to tie in one of your interests or passions with content about something to do with your industry or sas itself.
Jim,
I would love to hear more about possible valuations for SAS. Maybe you could start with the formula 37signals used in their recent investment, http://37signals.com/svn/posts/1941-press-release-37signals-valuation-tops-100-billion-after-bold-vc-investment If not, I honestly believe you have a perspective of international impacts that I don't see shared by very many bloggers. I would be interested to read how operating globally presents additional challenges to your company and what solutions have helped. I'd like to hear more about your photography, now that you mention it.
 Regarding the utility of blogging, I've been posting a "photo of the day" to a blog for the last couple of years, and was at a similar point where I questioned whether anyone was watching and why people weren't commenting. The response, when solicited, was positive, so I kept going, knowing that people were looking, even if they weren't commenting. One way to save time and invite more comments might be to introduce a topic and solicit input without going straight into the detail, turning it into more of a conversation as a multi-part series of posts. Being new to the world of blogging myself I can certainly relate to what you indicate and from that perspective I can only hope that what Dave Thomas indicates in his blog post, that it becomes easier over time, is true.
With regard to the (lack of) comments it is my idea that people indeed follow blogs and read them and, unless specifically asked, will hardly comment. Or you may receive a comment when people fully agree or disagree. But that is about it. Personally I think you have been and are following up to what you have stated in your very first blog post: "Revolutionary insights? No, but this is just my stake in the ground. I'll be developing these themes in future posts, pointing to positive examples of what business leaders are doing to succeed (whether or not they are SAS customers) and what trends are shaping the business landscape." So in my opinion you are and have not been off base at all and look forward to hearing/seeing you at the SAS Forum in the Netherlands. I've personally never met you, maybe in time I will, but SAS like many large organisations is spread across the world and 'meeting' people is mostly a function of business activity where expenses are justifiable. That said, as a result of your blog I do have an idea as to what your views are and what's affecting your opinion. I also feel I can write a comment and add to any debate you begin. Your blog (and other SAS blogs) therefore encourage a greater sense of community without which SAS would (probably) be less inter-connected. Time is scarce, but I sense the value created is substantially greater than the cost and that the returns are too many and varied to begin accounting for.
Two thoughts: a. the tone of your blog post this time encourages response, it's conversational, and it asks quite a deliberate question (it certainly looks like it's encoruaging greater feedback); b. if you keep up with a conversational tone that asks a deliberate question, more feedback may continue to come. Why not use your blog to deliberately spark debate that could help augment 'knowledge' with global internal opinion. From whatever angle you think about that, the result can only be good. Hi,
I recognize your concern. I'm publishing almost for 15 years now a magazine for my club. And I'm also wondering if someone ever read all I publish in that 20page magazine every month. Counting all the hours together I have ever spend, will certainly question if it is worth doing it. Specially missing the hours together with my children in my free time. But I still like the writing. Do you know I was even the worst student of my class for Dutch, and now I like it. I only get some responds if I make mistakes, and so I know they read it, ... I don't want to give you some ideas to create reactions  But why not teasing your audience from time to time? cheers Jim, keep up the good work.
We need someone to provide good high-brow content to balance out the questionable, off-topic posts that we see from some of your colleagues. You ask an interesting question Jim. "Are people consuming but don’t feel compelled to respond?" I'm tempted to turn that question around. "Are people blogging but don't feel compelled to consume anyone else's blog?" Also, I think you hit on the key issue around social media - who has the time to keep up with all of it? There's so much stuff out there - how do we filter out the information? That's what I find truly vexing.
I enjoy your posts, but I have to confess that I am hard pressed to keep up with them. Please keep posting, especially with regard to the direction of our company. It can be a little intimidating to reply or post comments to a blog... Especially if you don't really know the person.
Mixing business and more personal/funny things as Nathan posted will let your readers see (or read about) the different dimensions of your life. You know - they might feel like they are getting to "know" you a little more and feel more comfortable interacting on your blog. Connecting some of the bigger picture strategic stuff with "worker bee" tasks would be of interest to me... if there are particular things that you are focused on (market space, specific solutions, etc) - write about what is being done very well and how it is paying off - but also where there are gaps we could work to close up. Maybe that is not intended for this blog - I am not sure... I guess you could be less specific since it's accessible everywhere. Maybe you need an internal and external version!!! Jim- You are a person "of interest" to many internally and externally!
Keep up the engaging commentary. I have heard many positive comments. We are all interested in your more personal observations of what you see and hear globally on everything from your insight gained from the Executives and the Pro golfers you spoke with this past week, to your perspective on the healthcare plan... i.e. the Bloomberg article. As always, keep up the great job. I think the time issue hits the reader as well as the blogger. There are just so many blogs out there that you could spend your whole life reading them. For me, it's like fishing - I swim around busily doing my day job then get hooked when I spot an interesting blog headline somewhere - I go read it and then might stay hooked for a short while reading one or two other blogs, but then I wriggle free and dive back into the pond called 'busy with so many other things'.
Having an unusual or 'catchy' title often works, this blog certainly made me want to read....I was then further drawn in by learning about your interest in photography. I have an active interest too, having recently set up a new SAS Photography club in the UK. A waste of your time? No. I'd say not at all. Many don't bother (or want) to speak up and say something useful or voice an opinion so when someone does we owe them the time to listen. Rarely have I read a blog and thought 'gee what a waste of my time'. The diversity of our thoughts and opinions are what makes life interesting, even if we disagree. Where I personally lose interest, is in the facebook/twitter habit some people have of sharing every second of their life with us - the people who feel like they need to open a window into their lives, and quite honestly, I find this tedious. An real example tweet from 20 minutes ago... "bout to cook some popcorn shrimp...." - seriously, do people really get excited about knowing somebody else's every move? I just don't get it. As for comments, I rarely comment unless something touches or interests me personally, or if the blogger asked a specific question I felt I had an opinion on or an answer to. I enjoy reading your blogs and seeing what our CMO is thinking. I would rather you decrease the quantity rather than stop all together.
To me for example Twittering is way overkill on most things. I went to a telepresence meeting with John Chambers, he thinks video conferencing and videos are the new killer app. I believe that all these new technologies and apps like twitter have their place and you do have to figure out what works for you. As a blogger I do appreciate peoples comments, sometimes people stop me in the cafe or send me an email about a blog. Anyway I would say thanks Jim but don't feel pressure to blog too often. Suzanne I read and value your blog - I buy media (including ads on external blogs) for SAS and seeing what's inside your head helps me do my job. Your position within the company affords you a different view of the world than me and your blog is like a snapshot of that view every week. So, no, not a waste of time!
Jim,
Bloggers like journalists in the printed media make the mistake of thinking that frequency is more important than quality. Forcing yourself to meet a regular timetable just increases the risk that what you write is lower quality with a poor signal to noise ratio. Some bloggers also extend themselves beyond the domain of their expertise and attempt to write about subject matter they are ill equiped to add anything meaninful to a debate on. The social media muscle idea is a blogified version of what is commonly called communication skills. A mix of literacy, analysis, and logic is required to improve the signal to noise ratio in the blogsphere just as it is in the printed media. I've followed your blog and like what I've seen so far. As a customer and long time user of SAS software, I get value out of your content that relates to SAS strategy and direction, and the reasons why SAS as a company is pursuing that. That is quite different from dosing us with SAS Koolade. It's also quite different to presenting your thoughts on the wide range of human endeavour that you could possibly comment on, if you chose to do so on this blog. I'm not particularly interested in photography. A good analogy, but I don't agree that extends to blogging in general. Just like any skill, you need to measure it against a standard. The standard for any blogger is probably something similar to retail customer retention. How many of those that read your blog once bother to read it again. There are a number of blogs I read. Mostly focussed on some specific domain. Others I relegate to reading late on Friday afternoon, when I'm in the mood to write ascerbic responses to stuff that adds nothing but clutter to blow that statistic on the amount of data on the net out to a new meaningless larger number. (you'll note it is not Friday). Keep it up. Stay focused. And write when you have something useful to say, not by the clock. Regards Mike O'Neil Hi Jim,
You are doing a great job blogging ... You have just validated that You have more readers than you expected. This post has increased your best number of comments for more than 4 times. Keep writing about the future of SAS and analytics global market ... you are definitely a thought leader in your industry and we would like to read more about market trends and future roadmaps. Keep up the good work! I now have an icon on my desktop for your blog and click on it often. It provides insight into a different dimension of SAS and its general philosophy about how SAS views the future and how it plans to deal with it. As you know better than me, technology changes rapidly. A company can be in the forefront one day and out of business the next. When deciding to place one's entire data system into the hands of a particular company, there is always the question about the survival probbilities over time. Most of us who are on the older part of the age scale have been through a number of massive conversions to different data structures and programming code and we would like know that our current investment in the SAS System will keep us out of that game for a good while. Your thoughts and bog entries help us develop the confidence that SAS will be around for a long time and will continue to be current and stable and extremely supportive of the customer, something the heads of our organizations want to hear. I think your blog has contibuted to this issue. Keep it going. You might even consider having a guest blogger from the same part of the SAS world as you from time to time.
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ABOUT THIS BLOG Jim Davis, Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer for SAS, is responsible for providing strategic direction for SAS products, solutions and services and presenting the SAS brand worldwide. Additionally, he oversees a number of operational units including Publications, Education, and Alliances and Channels. In this blog he writes about the larger issues that affect a global business, and what it takes to be competitive in the 21st century. Read more about Jim.Calendar
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A reflection of my thoughts on my participation, or attempt to this, in social media triggered by a blog post by Jim Davis (Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer for SAS). ...
Tracked: Sep 25, 18:17
I’d like to thank everyone who commented on my last post, “Is blogging a waste of my time?” I really appreciate the responses. It wasn’t just a ploy to get comments. I really am trying to figure out if this is worthwhile, and your comments helped
Tracked: Oct 16, 10:56