"It's done! The circle is complete. The monster lives!"
I suppose if I was a mad scientist I might say something like that. But I'm not, so I'll just welcome the team at InMedia to the blogosphere. Francis Moran, the big cheese at InMedia, blames it all on me… and I suppose I might have had something to do with it. Francis and I sat down over coffee about a year ago, and I encouraged him to write a blog. I happen to think that Francis is a pretty effective writer, and he can be very provocative. Those are great traits if you want to build a highly trafficked blog. I also thought him an old-skool journo-skeptic. Not so. He just didn't want to write another PR blog. He was looking for a unique voice.
Choose your metaphor — he dove off the cliff, jumped in with both feet… whatever suits you. InMedialog launched yesterday, nearly a year after that fateful coffee chat. It's conceived as a topical periodical, with an editorial strategy, staff and benchmarks for ROI. Did you notice, by the way, that the name of the blog is InMeDIALOG? I have a feeling that there will be lots of dialog about the things Francis has to say. He gives a hint about some of what he will be writing about at the end of his inaugural post with this sentence.
Bottom line: Blogs may be a new form of communications. But many of the oldest rules still apply. You’ll see a lot from me on this issue.
Francis brings the abilities of a journalist, and the sensibility of a publisher to this new medium. That's very cool.
Alec Saunders is the Vice President of Developer Relations for BlackBerry make Research in Motion. This is his personal blog, with his personal viewpoints. Prior to this Alec was the CEO and co-founder of Calliflower — the easiest way to hold a meeting, online, on a conference call, or on the go. A double-decade veteran of product management and marketing, he spent nine years at Microsoft where he helped launch Windows 95, the first two versions of Internet Explorer, the Universal Plug and Play initiative, the push into home markets, opt-in email marketing and what might well go down in history as the very first direct email list ever.
