One challenge of corporate blogging is convincing busy people it’s worth their while

I joined Cadence Design Systems a little over a month ago as the company’s social media/Web community manager. My first mission: recruit, train (and then, on a weekly basis, cajole) a small army of expert bloggers from within the company’s ranks of engineers and product managers.

Cadence makes the software and hardware tools that very smart people use to design the latest and greatest chips for computers and electronic devices. The folks who work here are also very smart. They are on par with rocket scientists. I am a Neanderthal (no offense, all you Geico cavemen) in comparison.

The company’s user community, cdnusers.org, has discussion forums and articles – mainly technology-related papers and interviews featuring folks in the electronic design automation (EDA) space.

Adding blogs to this successful mix will give the community additional information and insight from Cadence experts.

Right now, there aren’t many EDA-related conversations in the blogosphere. So this is a fantastic opportunity for our bloggers to make a huge impact as thought leaders in their respective areas of expertise.

And since blogs are two-way communication vehicles, they just might learn something new from the ensuing discussions.

I launched a similar community with blogs last year for Symantec’s business customers. The Symantec Technology Network’s typical member is an IT manager. A few of my bloggers at Symantec would start out strong and then fade away, never to be seen or heard from again.

A big challenge in the world of corporate blogging is getting busy people who already have a lot on their plates to commit to blogging. One successful tactic in doing so is convincing them it’s worth their while.

“What’s in it for me?” some ask.

“Fame and fortune,” I tell them. “Well, probably not fortune. And perhaps only a mild degree of fame. But you’ll have an unfettered channel for promoting your technology, products and solutions. Best of all you’ll be interacting with customers and getting valuable feedback.”

I then point out that their managers have drafted them as bloggers, so they must blog. This is very good leverage. But I try not to abuse my power. I’ve learned that drafted bloggers never update their blogs on their own accord. They must be hounded for each post – so it’s better to win them over at the beginning.

I’ve been showing my Cadence blog recruits a new study from EDN titled “Understanding Online Technologies Among Electronics Engineers” (sorry, I am not allowed to distribute it).

The study, which included 4,000 engineers from around the world, reports that some 60 percent of design and development engineers read blogs for business purposes on a regular basis. What are they looking for? Information on the latest technologies, how-to and best practices recommendations, and product news.

Bingo! This is more good ammunition to prove that blogging is worth their while.

I’m in the midst of conducting blog workshops across the company. So far so good. But we’ll see what happens when the rubber hits the road and our blogs launch in a couple of months. The momentum is building and so is the excitement.

More later ….

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