Harbin and Blogs

Well, nothing in particular to write about today, really... except whatever I've been thinking about over the last couple of days I suppose. Firstly, I saw some photos of fantastic snow and ice sculptures in china at the Harbin Snow & Ice Festival, taken by R Todd King (the link is to his web site).

Secondly - blogging... I suppose if anybody was actually reading this blog, I might be tempted to think about it more! Darned if I can find it anywhere on the Internet and I know it's here! But anyway, I have been looking at The Cluetrain Manifesto which you can read online for free or purchase in book form from you know where (I'm no longer going to link to books on Amazon since the links always break down before long - you can find it yourself I'm sure). It is about how companies should stop trying to huckster their customers and prospects and start having real life conversations with them - using blogs. It explains why it will work, too, of course. Basically, human beings expect to be spoken with as human beings - not with sterile corporate-speak. Well, it sounds sensible to me. Companies who feel that their staff are too stupid to speak freely for them, I suppose, must think those same staff are too stupid to hold a normal conversation in their non-working lives too... And I imagine they think that their customers are too stupid to notice the plastic tone of authorized statements (which are also one-way communications and which are therefore largely ignored). Think about it. The solution is to allow the staff to blog freely...