Lillington on Scoble

KARLIN LILLINGTON chatted with Robert Scoble in a telephone interview that comes full circle. "An evangelist's role inside a company is to help software developers build software . . . A good evangelist is really a good listener. But then, a good blogger is really a good listener," Scoble said in a piece carried inside today's Technology section of The Irish Times on the run-up to the IT@Cork Annual Conference. The article is buried behind a costwall. The main points are being batted around by Irishblogs.

From Karlin, who quotes Scoble:

• Scoble doesn't mince words, which is one reason he's well-read by much of today's software development community.
• "He loves working at Microsoft - having a job that lets him walk around meeting smart people to discuss technology and life in general."
• "Generally at Microsoft, we have a good culture of listening to contrary opinions," he says. He feels that discussing the pros and cons of his own company, as well as the competition, raises a healthy challenge to Microsoft employees.
• Ask him why businesses should care about blogging and he says: "Google". Businesses should consider blogging - because if someone is looking for something your company does, and enters that something into a search engine, a good corporate blog can push the site to the top of search engine returns.
• Having a weblog also enables a business to talk directly to (and more importantly, with) customers, in a way that Scoble sees as more valuable than advertising. "Advertising will only take you so far," he says.
• "A goal of businesses should be to encourage and enable evangelistic behaviour in your customers," says Scoble.
• "When you actually start listening, when you put up a post and get a thousand comments".

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Karlin Lillington -- "Blogging is good for business, says tech evangelist" in The Irish Times, November 18, 2005 (sub req).
Robert Scoble -- Naked Conversations ISBN 047174719X
Bonus Link: Podcast of Robert Scoble chatting with Tom Raftery.

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