The Blog Council: A Good Source Of Perspectives, But It’s Not “Vendor Free”

Dell’s Lionel Menchaca was telling me about The Blog council last night. He’s enthused about the opportunity, and I can understand why — it’s a great way for him to network with his peers who are blogging at other major brands in a “vendor-free environment.” Another one of our clients called today to ask if they should join so I decided to post on it.

There are some notable sceptics out there: Dave Taylor says the council can’t convince major brands to relinquish control of their message. Scoble doesn’t think the Council can help companies “get the value of seemingly unimportant conversations.” They make some good points.

Digging a little deeper I discovered that Andy Sernovitz is leading the Council. I met him during a project for Dell, and he’s a good guy. Andy has a track record for building associations like this — see WOMMA and before that he did something around electronic commerce. His MO seems to be 1) create an association, 2) learn a lot from its members, 3) write a book, 4) speak at conferences, 5) Advise companies and sell them some consulting services.

I have to say that this set-up bugs me. I can’t join the council because I’m a “vendor” and the organization is “vendor free.” Having said that, Andy is most certainly “a vendor” and this is great (if not brilliant) marketing for his company. But that’s a conflict of interest, in my view. Andy should probably refrain from being a vendor or consultant to his members — maybe that’s in their charter. If not, I won’t be referring a lot of clients to The Blog Council until it opens up to other “vendors” who can offer insights based on real experience.

Having said that, I think the idea of Lionel and his peers getting together to exchange perspectives and ideas is a great one. Most major brands need to work harder at “joining the conversations” in which they are interested versus just “initiating the conversations” in which they are interested. I think sharing some ideas on how to do this more effectively — and tackling other challenges they face — is worthwhile… council or no council.

7 December 2007 | Blogging, Dell | Comments