A quick rant:
I am getting a sudden increase in email, phone calls and other inbound traffic which is based on the presumption I'm a blogger. Lots of stuff about SEO (ugh), "driving traffic", offers to write posts on my blog, offers to pay me to write posts, people trying to talk me into writing posts about their companies and so on. I'm not interested in "stories", I'm not interested in your web buttons, I'm not interested in having my posts syndicated on sites not frequented by my clients & contributors. And I'm certainly not interested in unsolicited press releases that Executive A from Company B is speaking at Conference Z.
So let me set the record straight: I am not a blogger.
I'm an industry analyst & consultant who happens to write a blog. My company is called Disruptive Analysis, not Disruptive Wireless.
I am no more a blogger than a politician, or a vendor's head of product marketing, or a TV journalist that happens to use a blog to reach out to potential customers / voters / viewers / whomever.
This blog is a tool, like the phone or email. I'm not an "emailer" or a "phoner". There is no advertising. It's a means to an end, not an end in itself. If it ceased to generate business for me, I'd stop writing it tomorrow without a second thought. I'm not interested in some nebulous and fluffy "blogging community".
The blog exists to generate interest in my published reports, consulting service, workshops and speaking engagements. Its secondary role is through the comments, which have often valuable insights. And the third role is for awareness - it's useful to me when people I meet have read my stuff & recognise my name.
I do not mind receiving (relevant) press releases. But read first, to be sure it really is relevant and not tangential to what I research. And then ask me if it's OK to add me to your list.
The sole exception to this is for those (few) large vendor companies that weirdly have better-resourced and more responsive "blogger relations" teams than those for analyst relations. In those cases, I'm happy to masquerade temporarily as a blogger, if you get me better access to the company than an AR team that doesn't recognise independent analysts.
Rant over. Apologies if it changed your view of who I am & what I do - but that's how it is.
Dean Bubley's Disruptive Wireless: Thought-leading wireless industry analysis
Great post, Dean, but somehow I don't think it's going to slow the offers you've been getting all that much in the long term.
ReplyDeleteCan I interest you in an organ enlargement?
ReplyDeleteI think a person or a company that mistakes this blog (and the person behind it) to be of anything but directly conjugated with the company Disruptive Analysis then the person or the company who think such are not worthy the time you spent typing this entry!
ReplyDeleteIt's very similar if they sort of go after blogger.com's own blog or MS-Vista's developers blog and asked their contributors to write about their X & Y products!
In all cases, as a telecom professional with real passion to telecommunication technologies & trends, i see the contribution and insight you provide -essentially for free- through this blog as a true testimony to the value of what you can offer through the consultancy firm you run.
If i was a decision maker in need for a professional (and alternative insight) to the market place in areas relevant to the ones disruptive Analysis is active in, i wouldn't hesitate for a minute to get in touch with!