On lookout for good corporate blogs

Hi Stephen,

My company has a blog called RaceTalk, which discusses marketing and PR issues relevant to technology, health and science marketers, and the media. You can check it out at http://racetalkblog.com/

Ben

I really like the official CBC blog
http://insidethecbc.com/

Here's a few good ones:

Bill Marriott, Chairman & CEO of Marriott International: http://www.blogs.marriott.com/

SouthWest Airlines: http://www.blogsouthwest.com/guide/

Sun Microsystems CEO:
http://blogs.sun.com/jonathan/

you could check out:

http://blogs.toyota.com/
http://www.blogsouthwest.com/
http://blog.wellsfargo.com/GuidedByHistory/

We just launched www.BizCentral.org, a business association community blog, the first of its kind. Participants include the American Petroleum Institute, the American Trucking Assn, the Business Roundtable and 7-8 others. The idea is to grow the business voice in the blogosphere. Hope you'll ck it out.

corporate blogs are so two years ago :-) we merged employee blogs with a Digg-like application for the French national railways: got questions about your daily train ride? the company's balance sheet? a suggestion to improve the service?: the community votes on the best questions, and employees -not the company- respond each day.
(yeah yeah, I know it's not in the US, but neither is the blogosphere) :
if you're interestd, here's the address:
http://debats.sncf.com/

Have a good weekend

Stephen,

Here's a wiki of the F500 business blogs. the good, the bad and the ugly..

http://www.socialtext.net/bizblogs/index.cgi

I've found that the best corporate blogs are those that address a specific community rather than try to appeal to all stakeholders.

It's amazing that while "blog" was the word of the year in 2004, only around 10% of Fortune 500 companies have a blog of their own today. You should check out the Fortune 500 Business Blogging Wiki (http://www.socialtext.net/bizblogs/index.cgi).

I'd recommend:

- Coca-Cola Conversations (http://www.coca-colaconversations.com/my_weblog/) written by the company historian. He's talks about one thing, and he does it really, really well.

- Storage Effect (http://storageeffect.com/) written by Seagate about the storage industry. It has a great conversational tone that appeals to consumers.

- Cisco System's Mobility Blog (http://blogs.cisco.com/wireless/), which, although technical, speaks to a very specific audience. (disclosure: Cisco is a client)

I'd also agree with Casi that Jonathan Schwartz's blog is awesome. Read about the April Fool's prank his colleagues pulled on him, for example.

Good luck!

there's a software company in Switzerland using blogs

# Rich Internet Applications - Web 2.0 Technology Blog on Java, AJAX and Flex.

http://www.canoo.com/blog

# Ask Dr. Bopp - Questions and answers on http://www.canoo.net, an online language resource for German (the blog is written in German).

http://www.canoo.net/blog

As I'm sure you well know, GMs FastLane blog site is well established.http://fastlane.gmblogs.com/

And Shel Israel has an interview with GM VP blogger Bob Lutz which gives some great insight into how the blog works for them http://redcouch.typepad.com/weblog/2008/04/gntv-gms-bob-lu.html

I think there is an interesting question regarding what a Web 2.0 corporate website should be. It's clearly not brochureware, nor a blog tacked on the side. But what should it be?

Here is our experiment. We've tried to kill the corporate voice completely and have everything come from individuals in the company through an integrated blog mechanism. http://www.optaros.com/blogs/what-web-20-corporate-website

For a post modern approach, check out Modernista. http://www.modernista.com/7/index.php

How would you define a Web 2.0 corporate website?

For retirement blog with safe retirement topics on economic related times and ideas check out http://www.theretirementpros.com/

Stephen,

I too am looking to  ideate with other corporate bloggers on my reflections around my corporate blogger
avtar. I have been moonlighting on the “Managing Offshore IT”   for over a year and half and have learnt quite a bit about corporate blogging, including how to promote a topic of which is not extremely popular among mainstream technologists. [the ‘O’ word - Offshoring, Outsourcing -- still makes heads turn, though it is the new business reality!] Topics I am reflecting on include:


* Where/how do I leverage this practical Web 2.0 experience?


* I have enjoyed reflected glory of being the owner/author of a niche corporate blog; what next?


* If I am not exploring a career as a full-time blogger, are there other opportunities to leverage these
(corporate blogging) skills?


* Ideas on expanding the topic/reach [again, what does it mean to me?]


* Other allied ideas?

- Mohan

Stephen,

If you are still monitoring comments on this post, please let me know what you think about the blog I work on, www.whatsthediff.com - the Quicken Loans blog. We took a different approach to corporate blogging when we launched this in Nov. 2006 - we don't write about our business, we write about the things we find interesting or special in the world. Our goal is to put a human face on our company. We have a great time doing the blog and I'd love your opinion of how well we do it (or don't).