Shel Israel Interviews Neville Hobson
In February 2006, the book Naked Conversations was published. This seminal work, authored by Robert Scoble and Shel Israel, described the picture in 2005 of how blogs, bloggers and the blogosphere were changing how businesses communicate with their customers and other stakeholders. The authors discuss more than 50 case studies of companies and business leaders, and the book encourages businesses about the best and most successful ways of blogging.
A significant part of the book is interviews with individuals who began blogging, personally or for business, and their perspectives on the future of this powerful tool. I was one of those interviewed by Shel Israel in May 2005: the text of that interview is below.
Neville Hobson is a British Communications professional practicing in Amsterdam. In addition to his popular blog covering communications and business, he co-produces and co-hosts a podcast with Shel Holtz, whom we will report on shortly.
As always, we go long on these interviews, then will trim them down when included in a future chapter, in this case, it's one on "Consultants who get it," and Neville is an excellent example.
Q. You’ve been in the communications business for a long time. What are the most significant changes you have experienced?
The single most significant change I’ve seen over the past 25 years is in how people communicate with each other. Technology is the great enabler, facilitating ease of access to information and the sharing of it, which is now global, immediate, pervasive and persistent. The tools we have at our disposal today – from wireless laptops and Pocket PCs you can take anywhere, to the latest camera phones that work everywhere – mean anyone can communicate and share information with anyone else, literally from and to anywhere on the planet.
This is true whether we’re talking about individual, personal, communication or whether we’re talking about an employee in Beijing communicating with a colleague in Buenos Aires, Birmingham or Budapest.
Q. What made you decide to start blogging?
I first started blogging late in 2002 when I started a personal blog on BlogSpot. That effort was prompted by curiosity. I wanted to try out something that I kept hearing about – this thing called ‘blogs’ that let you write an online personal diary then publish it for anyone to see and comment on.
I completely jumped into the blogosphere in July 2004 after I learned I’d soon be looking for a new career opportunity because my employer had been acquired. I decided I’d convert my blog into a vehicle to help me figure out my next move. I started writing almost every day on topics the areas that interested me – the intersection of business, communication and technology as a way to get my thoughts and opinions down on paper. I wanted to do my thinking in a public way that might enable me to connect with others who had similar mindsets. I began visiting other blogs and connecting with those bloggers.
I moved to TypePad because nearly every other blogger I’d connected with was using it. My blog played an instrumental role in my deciding to go my own way rather than finding another traditional job. I believed blogging could be a powerful evolutionary tool for stimulating organizational changes—breaking down barriers and helping organizations embrace openness and transparency.
I started my own communication consulting practice focused on helping organizations work out the value of tools such as blogs as strategic communication channels.
Q. How has it changed your communications consulting practice?
Totally. My blog is my persona. It is my marketing and brand vehicle. I have no brochures, flyers, traditional website—just the blog. It’s where my new business relationships begin. Others get to know me before we meet. Blogging has produced new professional relationships which has led to new clients.
Q. How has blogging changed who you are and what you do?
It has helped change my outlook and perspective on the world in general. For example, no longer do I simply read online news. Instead, I do that in tandem with finding out what other bloggers say. I connect with those opinions either through joining in conversations on other blogs or writing comment and opinion in my own blog where others may comment. It makes for amazing connections. Professionally, it has convinced me there’s a new way of working where a blog is central and that by doing it that way relationships have a new form of trust as their foundation.
In the old way, you make connections with people and cement those connections often through personal meeting before making a commitment. In the new way, you find out a little about somebody through a blog and the connections to and from that blog. In my experience, that’s plenty to make a commitment and begin a business relationship even before you meet your new colleague or client.
It can be a risky leap of faith and may not be for everyone, but for me, it’s perfect.
Q. Is business blogging developing along different lines in Europe than it is in the US? How so?
I believe it is, mainly in the differences between cultures and languages in how readily or not people embrace such open means of communicating and sharing.
Americans tend to be far more open, sharing and spontaneous about connecting with other people than do many Europeans, especially in a business context.
But, I believe that blogs themselves are a highly effective catalyst for producing radical change in the traditional European reserve for openness, sharing and spontaneity. As tools like blogs become more pervasive in European organizations – driven in large part by their take-up by multi-national organizations, especially those headquartered in the US – we will see a steady catch-up.
Q. How are you using blogging and social media in your consulting practice?
I co-founded Blogging Planet, a communication consultancy in March 2005 with three French communication professionals. One of our primary knowledge-sharing resources is a wiki which we use to share thinking and planning. It’s practical and effective, especially for professionals located in different countries.
I use my own blog to further relationships with other like-minded professionals through the topics I write about. I make a point of visiting many other blogs and creating connections with those blog authors through comments and trackbacks.
And I also rely on good old-fashioned email if I want to bring a good blog post to someone’s attention, especially a client who isn’t a blogger.
Q. Can you tell us some ways you’ve helped clients use blogging?
As a concise example, I am working with one client (a global company in the telecommunications industry) in developing a blogging platform that will be a primary channel for the marketing function to develop closer relationships with and between their marketing communication and public relations staff and external agencies in Europe. When we roll it out as a pilot in a few weeks, it will be a benchmark for other potential uses of blogs as communication and relationship-development tools.
Q. Robert and I are both fans of the Hobson & Holtz Report. How do you think it and podcasting will change the world?
I’m not sure that the Hobson & Holtz Report will change the world, but I believe it will change how communicators think about different ways in which they can employ new communication media like podcasting in their organizations or for their clients.
Some people say that podcasting is a revolution that will change people’s listening habits. Others say it’s a fad that’s of limited appeal and use beyond geeks and enthusiasts. In either case, you’d have to admit that something that, in just eight months, has rocketed out of nowhere and today got companies large and small interested is a clear signal that this is a medium that will soon become mainstream.
Three factors drive it:
1. It’s easy. All you need is a PC, a microphone, a network connection, some free recording software, a place to deliver it and a bit of imagination.
2. It’s inexpensive. Podcasting enables you to create and publish audio material that previously would have required a professional recording studio.
3. It's portable. Podcasting dovetails the explosive adoption of digital music players, notably the iPod.
I believe podcasting will soon become a standard communication tool alongside the press release, website and brochure for almost any type of organization – just as blogs will.
Q. How have you changed because of blogging?
On a purely personal level, it has opened up the world and changed entirely how I used to think about many things and how I communicate what I think about those things. It has fanned the flames of my own natural curiosity. Now, if I read something that I find interesting, I’ll likely blog about it to see what others think about it or to simply express my opinion. Or I might see something that I’ll photograph – and upload those photos to a place like Flickr so that others can see what I saw and comment on it if they want.
Blogging has also been a fantastic vehicle for many of the new business and related relationships I have developed in with people in different countries – relationships that likely would not have happened if I had not had a blog nor actively participated in the blogosphere.
Finally, blogging has taught me that evangelism means perseverance.
Posted by shel israel on May 08, 2005 | Permalink