Starting today, if you want to post a comment on this blog, you’ll have to register before. I hope this will not prevent you to put comments here.

When I started this blog, I accepted all comments. Then, because of a few spamming comments, I decided to approve them before publication. But now, the software agents (bots) used by sites selling magical pills, gambling activities or pornography are leaving between 60 and 80 messages per day here, and it’s a waste of time to delete all these useless comments.

With this registration process, which will only be activated when you want to post your first comment, these bots will no longer be able to leave spamming messages.

On another note, and it’s a coincidence, I was forced to completely disable comments on my tech-related blog, Roland Piquepaille’s Technology Trends, after a deliberated attack. Two days ago, an unknown attacker used a script for automatically post 5 500 comments and trackback links on one of my notes — probably because it has been selected by Slashdot.

For more information about this attack and why I had to disable comments on this other blog, please read “Comments Are No Longer Accepted Here.”

Elizabeth Albrycht is a U.S-born woman who lives in France. Of course, she’s not alone in this situation, but she still has a foot on the other side of the Atlantic ocean, with her PR agency, Blogging Planet. She edits a blog about her activities, CorporatePR, where she speaks about the effects of technology on work, society and democracy, and of course of the evolution of corporate communications. Elizabeth is also the author of another blog in the Corante galaxy, Future Tense where she explores the future of work. I decided to meet Elizabeth to discuss the status of the usage of blogs inside companies both in France and in the U.S. Here is the — long (1,800 words) — result from this conversation which was held by e-mail and over the phone.

Roland: First, why did you choose to come to France and to live there?

Elizabeth: I had always wanted to live in France after visiting it on a student exchange when I was 16 years old and falling in love with the country (it was my first trip to Europe). About three years ago - a coup de foudre - I met a wonderful Frenchman. A year later we decided the cross-Atlantic commute was painful (he lived in Paris, me just outside of Washington, DC), so I decided to move. It was relatively easy given I had been working “virtually” from my home office for nearly three years already. I figured a few more time zones wouldn’t be that big of a deal…and they weren’t after my clients got used to the idea.

Roland: As you kept your PR agency in the U.S. at least so far, you know the corporate communications market on both sides of the ocean. Can you tell me if the usage of blogs inside companies is similar in France and in the States?

Elizabeth: When I moved, I had a business partner in California, Jen McClure, with whom I had a agency, Albrycht McClure and Partners. We had been in business for two years under that brand, but had known each other for one year longer. We actually met as independent consultants, each advising the same client (on different matters). We realized we had many of the same philosophies and complementary skills, so we decided to team up. The interesting thing about this is that we worked together for a year before ever actually meeting face-to-face! This was around 2000, and there were increasing numbers of refugees from Silicon Valley setting up independent consultancies and networks, so it wasn’t altogether rare. From what I have seen here in France, it is much more difficult to set up that type of arrangement, for both legal and cultural reasons. Of course, we just set up Blogging Planet in the same manner, so things are moving along here as well!

Given all of the events over the past year, particularly our launch of the New Communications Forum in the US (a 2-day conference for PR and marketing professionals to learn about blogs, wikis, RSS and other new communications tools), Jen and I have decided to take two different paths. She is going to focus on building the New Communications Blogzine (a bi-monthly eNewsletter/blog hybrid she launched after the Forum) and other endeavors focusing on new communications tools education. I have formed an alliance with Guillaume du Gardier of PR Planet in Paris and Neville Hobson of NevOn in Amsterdam to provide training and consulting to global organizations on using new communications tools to build networks.

As regards the differences between the French and American agencies and blogging:

I think the US is further along in the awareness and initial adoption of corporate blogging than France. But I suspect the two countries are relatively close on political and consumer blogging these days, particularly following the events of this summer (esp. constitution). Endeavors like Skyblog and increased mobile blogging (which is much more difficult in the US given its wireless infrastructure is behind technologically to Europe’s) are increasing consumer adoption faster here (I would presume to say - I don’t have numbers to back this up). Also, it seems that the mainstream media is much more accepting of blogging here than in the US, where traditional journalists treat bloggers as the enemy.
As to why the US is further along in corporate blogging, I think one of the growing reasons for that is that there is a strong cadre of PR/marketing bloggers - mostly independents - who are pushing this along. As independents, we can take more risks and more easily take on the role of evangelists. You don’t find most of the big agencies taking on this role in the US. As France has fewer (vocal anyway) independents, you have a few lonely evangelists in the PR/marketing space. I am not saying, of course, that the role of PR/marketing bloggers is the critical thing. A list bloggers like Loic le Meur here and Robert Scoble in the US certainly are pushing things along as well. But it is increasingly falling to the marketing/PR dept. to figure out how to make blogs work on a day-to-day basis, and as more people share their experiences, adoption increases.

Roland: When did you start blogging?

Elizabeth: I started blogging in August 2003. I can’t remember exactly when I found out about blogs. In fact, I think I was reading them before I knew what they were. In August, I read about TypePad accepting beta customers, and decided to become one. I had a sneaking suspicion that blogging was going to be important for communications professionals and felt I needed to figure out what it was all about. After a few months, I was hooked!

Roland: And do you have readers from all over the world?

Elizabeth: Yes! That is one of the beautiful things about blogging. I have met people from all over the world via my blog, including my two new business partners. For example, last year I took a provocative position on outsourcing for PR/marketing to India. I thought it was doable and that PR people should be thinking about it. Most people thought (still do) that it is impossible. Given my experiences of global PR service provisioning, I still think it is doable. But the interesting thing was the PR people from India who contacted me via my blog comments and off-blog to talk about the state of PR in India! That was very cool.

Roland: Do you think that your blogs have modified your business?

Elizabeth: My blog has completely transformed my business. Before I started blogging, we were a traditional PR agency that encouraged the use of online tools (eNewsletters, Forums, etc.), but our primary work was launching companies and products. We were endlessly frustrated by the increased difficulty of doing that job given that our channels of communications had become polluted by spam and inept PR people. To me, blogs represented a brand new channel for PR/marketing that, used appropriately, could be incredibly powerful. Before I started blogging, I was a completely unknown PR person who wasn’t connected into any major networks of influence. Today, I have a reputation as one of the top PR bloggers, I have co-produced a conference, I am being invited to speak at other conferences, my articles are published and people actually want to hear what I have to say! At the same time, I have been able to embark on an intellectual journey of trying to understand the social effects of these technologies and when they mean for more collaborative forms of work and community. I have been working on developing a new communications model or framework that tries to describe how these tools fit together to help people and organizations build networks of influence. It is incredibly challenging and rewarding work.

Roland: And how do you see the use of blogs for corporate communications, by well-known brands for example?

Elizabeth: I think blogs are the tip of the iceberg as it pertains to how organizations will use participatory communications tools (as I like to call them). While blogs can be powerful communications channels, they won’t work for every company - perhaps not even a majority of them. I think we are going to see a hybridization occur, with certain attributes of blogs, wikis, RSS, podcasts, tagging, and social networks merging to create new tools, for example. I think you are also going to see these technologies bolted onto traditional supply chains and knowledge management tools, creating entirely new ways for organizations to coordinate and collaborate. That is why I am more interested in looking at the phenomenon of these tools from the standpoint of network building, vs. the tool itself.

Roland: Finally, what are your current projects?

Elizabeth: I have invested most of my time over the past several months into better understanding the current theories and practices of cooperation, so I can better decide what tools should be applied in what way to what types of business dilemmas. I firmly believe that communications is at the heart of the future of work, where globally distributed work teams from a variety of organizations gather together to work on projects over a discrete time frame. In order to do this successfully, we need to understand the nature of group dynamics so we can design online work environments that support the success of a the project. I am seeking to combine my knowledge of mass communications and marketing and the new participatory communications tools to this problem.

My partners and I formed Blogging Planet to focus on helping companies understand new communications tools. This alliance is evolving to focus more strongly on future of work related topics. At the same time, I am exploring the future of work via the new Corante blog called Future Tense. I have brought together a group of people from a variety of business disciplines to have a public conversation about the challenges, opportunities and pitfalls of the evolution of work.

Given the state of adoption of these tools, we find that our work with companies today is primarily in training. For example, we have recently done a series of workshops for a variety PR agencies in Europe and a selection of their clients. I will be presenting two one-day seminars on new communications tools for the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) in Sept and October in the US. I’ll also be speaking at a conference called PharmaBlogging in November in Philadelphia. We have a teleseminar series in development as well as some in-person events in Europe.

Roland: Well, it seems you’ll be busy for a while, so thank you for taking the time to speak with me.

For about ten days now, Celio, the well-known clothing brand, has a blog, and it is to my knowledge the first of its kind in France. This blog, Vous les hommes, is written by Sophie Kune with the total approval of Bertrand Jouvenot, from the marketing department of Celio, and also a personal blogger with his Journal de BJ au bureau. Sophie will animate this blog with a total freedom and her goal is to seduce us. I’ll revisit this blog in a couple of months to see how things are progressing. Read more (in French).

With his web agency, Alexis Perrier has created many web sites during the past five years. But recently, his company, Darjeelink, decided to take the plunge and to invest into the blogging world. Alexis wants professionals and companies to use blogs as a new medium for their communication. I recently met Alexis to discuss this strategic change. Here are selected excerpts from this interview (in French).

eCourier, based in London, has developed an online package-tracking system which allows for same day delivery services across the UK. All its couriers are equipped with PDAs and customized GPS software. But the development of the Java-based software used for coordinating the back-end and front-end offices has been realized by teams of programmers living in Italy, Germany and the UK. Instead of relying on traditional project management tools to monitor this development, Computerworld writes that eCourier turned to blogging tools to speed package-tracking project.

Here are two short excerpts showing the advantages of these blogging tools.

For eCourier, using blogging tools to help develop the Java-based mapping system made sense for several reasons, said Jay Bregman, eCourier’s co-founder and technology director. “I wanted to cut costs as much as possible, so I couldn’t afford to be traveling from Italy to Germany to the U.K.” to manage the project teams, he said.

At a cost of roughly $1,000 for a five-person license, the blogging tools from Traction Software more than paid for themselves in travel savings alone, said Bregman. “And instead of playing a massive game of telephone [tag] between these [developers], this gave us a source of record between what was being done,” he said.

PS: I already wrote here about the Traction Software tools in “The Dark Blogs.”

Several months ago, I told you to check your text for formal errors before publishing. But it is also crucial to check and double check the facts you’re using to illustrate a point you want to make. Let’s look for example at two recent big mistakes coming from a news magazine and a blog. First, in this article from l’Express about “la blog attitude,” you’ll read that IBM has 130 000 employees. In fact, and it’s pretty easy to find, IBM has more than 330 000 employees. What was probably a typo made by a blogger two months ago, has become the truth for the French blogosphere, and even for some journalists… And what to think about the rumor of the purchase by Microsoft of Claria, a company known for its adware and spyware activities? This rumor, initiated by CNET News.com on June 30, has become reality on July 7 in a post on BoingBoing, which is read by millions of people every month (BoingBoing updated its post since that, but without really admitting its error). These two examples are a disgrace for their authors. And it is very important for you as a blogger to avoid such mistakes. Check and double check your text for factual errors before hitting the “Publish” button… Read more (in French).

In order to celebrate Bastille Day, here are some preliminary — idea-based — fireworks. Marie Corceiro-Leal is the host of several blogs, including ParisZine, a blog about living in the 11th district of Paris and which includes practical tips as well as cultural or political news. Marie is currently working with other Parisian bloggers to collectively gather all the information required to feed these Parisian blogs, which are rapidly becoming an alternative to official city sources. And as Marie is about to transform her blog into a small company, you sure understand why I wanted to meet her to learn more about her projects. Below are from this interview (in French).

According to a survey released by Backbone Media, a search engine marketing company based in Waltham, Massachusetts, corporate blogs are a good way of interacting with customers and consumers. But the almost obvious conclusion of this 72-page report is based on a population which doesn’t seem to be representative. “518 bloggers were contacted for the corporate blogging survey, resulting in 816 people visiting the survey page.” And on the only 97 people who filled the survey form, 75 were bloggers.

Here is a link to the full survey (PDF format, 72 pages, 1.02 MB).

And here are selected excerpts from the executive summary.

We asked bloggers at hundreds of companies to participate in an online survey and conducted in-depth interviews with leading individuals from six corporate blogs that were selected as representative of the diverse spectrum of the corporate blogging world.

What we discovered was that for the majority of our survey sample, (which includes some of today’s biggest corporations and scrappiest underdogs), corporate blogs are living up to all the hype. We discovered that corporate blogs are giving established corporations and obscure brands the ability to connect with their audiences on a personal level, build trust, collect valuable feedback and foster strengthened relationships while and at the same time benefiting in ways that are tangible to the sales and marketing side of the business.

And here is another — expected — conclusion.

Listening to customers and acting on their suggestions is one of the best ways to build a group of customers who are committed to expressing their goodwill to their community. It is a common practice in blogging to provide a link back to a thought originator, which is valuable because backlinks are a way that search engines distinguish the order of the editorial rankings. When customers start commenting, posting or tracking back to their blogging community it can have a viral effect - spreading the word through other blogs. We discovered that it is a company’s blogging strategy that will produce the strongest community goodwill, and that goodwill brings the most marketing and sales returns.

So this report is interesting, and you should read some of the case studies, but its conclusions would have been more valuable if thousands of bloggers have answered the survey.

Bruno Boutteau is a consultant in the high-tech area and with his company, Economie Numérique Conseil, he helps local communities to deal with all the aspects of ‘e-government.’ To meet his needs for document content management, he has built a knowledge database disguised as a news site. So, strictly speaking, he’s not a blogger even if his site looks like a blog. On this page, Bruno mentions articles speaking about his centers of interest, such as the environment, nanotechnologies or robotics. I wanted to meet him to learn why he was not using a traditional blogging tool and what were the advantages of the solution he chose. Below are selected excerpts of the conversation I had with Bruno (in French).

The New York Times asked the question to several online merchants in North America and gives their answers in this article, “Blogging while browsing, but not buying.” First, most of these online shops are afraid that customers follow outside links on their blogs and don’t come back to their shops. But they’re still trying and the newspaper asked several companies involved in different activities what they thought about their blogs. In this note, I decided to focus on the experience of Bluefly, a discount apparel e-tailer of brands such as Prada, Fendi or Gucci.

Here are some short excerpts from this article.

Executives at Bluefly.com, the discount apparel e-tailer, credit their blog, Flypaper with bringing in new customers. Flypaper, which was introduced in April and features postings — sometimes more than one a day — on anything fashion-related, “is bringing some very positive things,” said Melissa Payner, the chief executive.

Among other things, Payner said, Flypaper visitors who click to Bluefly have been more likely to make a purchase than those who visit Bluefly directly.

The company doesn’t say if its sales have increased after the introduction of its blog. And other retailers are also pretty vague. For example, here is a quote by Shmuel Gniwisch, the CEO of an online jeweler based in Montreal, Ice.com, which also has a blog, Ice Blog.

Gniwisch said the blogs attracted “thousands of visitors” a week, but the effect on sales was unclear. “Technically, this is a very soft sell,” he said. “We’re intending to build awareness of our product, so if sales come, great. If not, it’s also good.”

Apparently, e-tailers don’t know if their blogs have a positive ROI, even in the U.S. If you know about similar experiences in France or in Europe, please leave a comment below.