JUDITH MESKILL’S WEBLOG PERFECT PITCH COMPETITION

Judith Meskill, who simultaneously runs two weblogs (Knowledge Notes and The Social Software Weblog), recently ran a contest to write the Perfect Pitch for weblogs in business. The idea was to write a very short speech (short enough to deliver in a short elevator ride) that would persuade a senior executive of a company to introduce blogs in their company. I was honoured to have been asked to be one of the judges. The winners were Lee LeFever, Randal Moss, Jack Vinson and Michael Angeles. Lee’s prize winning pitch was:

First, think about the value of the Wall Street Journal to business leaders. The value it provides is context ó the Journal allows readers to see themselves in the context of the financial world each day, which enables more informed decision making.

With this in mind, think about your company as a microcosm of the financial world. Can your employees see themselves in the context of the whole company? Would more informed decisions be made if employees and leaders had access to internal news sources?

Weblogs serve this need. By making internal websites simple to update, weblogs allow individuals and teams to maintain online journals that chronicle projects inside the company. These professional journals make it easy to produce and access internal news, providing context to the company ó context that can profoundly affect decision making. In this way, weblogs allow employees and leaders to make more informed decisions through increasing their awareness of internal news and events.

Now the winners get to turn the tables on us judges. This time we (Dina Mehta, Don Park, Flemming Funch, Jim McGee, Lilia Efimova, Martin Dugage, Phil Wolff, Ross Mayfield, Scott Allen, Ton Zijlstra and yours truly) have to write a Perfect Pitch for blogs in business, and the winners get to judge our entries. Keep your fingers crossed for me. I can’t tell you my entry because Judith is going to keep the identity of each submission hidden, so that no one is swayed by our awesome reputations in casting their vote ;-)