Adaptive blogs - Follow the conversation
Published October 25th, 2005 in E-PRIt doesn’t work to leap a twenty-foot chasm in two ten-foot jumps
Adaptive design is all about responding to your audience’s wants and needs. Did you know that Flickr started out as a feature in a Multiplayer game? Neither did I until I attended Emmet Connolly’s presentation at TechCamp.
Retaining a loose structure and being able to adapt is vital in order to grow in the long term. It doesn’t matter whether you’ve created a Multiplayer game, write a blog or are running a PR campaign. Organisations that keep track of trends and that can respond to them quickly enough will be able to profit from them.
The best example of adaptive design Emmet gave was Grand Theft Auto. Most people think that the reason it sells so well is because it’s all blood and guts. The real reason is because the game allows the player to do what they want. You can drive around the city, play a level or just listen to the radio. You only need to look at any government transport plan for an example that doesn’t conform to adaptive design!
A lot of bloggers blog about blogging. Now if that last sentence makes sense then we’re on a losing streak. If the world and their dog set up a weblog and the same cycle ensues, then rather than spawn a world of Consumer Generated Media, we’re going to start the online version of a broken record.
All blogs should follow the principles of adaptive design. For example, mine has started as an educational tool for myself. As I progress through the ranks though, my topics of conversation will vary as I begin to draw from experience. However, my choice of website address could prove to be short sighted if I change career.
Some organisations might want to set up a blog to tell people how great they are, but if their customers don’t share the same opinion, then the company is going to receive criticism rather than praise. These organisations should take this on board and solicit feedback in order to get it right in the future.
A conversation is meant to be a two way process. Anyone that is getting talked at will get bored quickly and move on to someone else to talk to. The most interesting conversations however are those that are actually engaging, where you can have your say and change someone’s viewpoint. When people feel actively involved in the conversation, then a blog will flourish.
Technorati Tags: Blogging, Blogs, Piaras Kelly, PR, Emmet Connolly
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I think you make a good point about the danger of blogs being too self-absorbed. I doubt we would ever see the world and his dog get blogging if the existing content didn’t reach out at some point and engage those beyond the typical blogger profile - there just wouldn’t be any relevancy to the medium for them.
But yes, blogs are another great example of adaptive systems. They are constantly in flux, always being tweaked to become something more developed, and are engaged in a continuous and open feedback loop with their audience. And a decent blogging engine enables changes to be made through the use of templates, plugins, etc. The nature of what a blog is used for can change completely according to the input of so many signals.
Maybe that’s why there’s always so much to blog about blogging
I was talking to Tom R yesterday about how a lot of start ups now are using blogs and rss to stay in touch with their potential userbase and adapt as quickly as possible.
Witness Flock and AdGenta communicating on Tom’s Site, or Ning discussing User Agreement on BifSniff.com.
These companies obviously have ’searched and subscribed’ to keep a close eye on what people are saying about them, and have a policy of responding and where possible adapting.
I will be really curious to see if this listening/responding ethos is carried through by such companies beyond start up phase…
There are a number of big companies that are listening, but relatively few are responding like on Tom’s site.
That’s great to see by the way.
On the domain naming issue - the other side to that coin is that if you pick to generic a name, people won’t know what you do, especially for a start-up blog, when the name won’t have any recognition.
pkellyPR tell’s me it’s PR site - and that’s what I find when I browse it. Same for tomrafteryIT. There’s two blogs that in the name let me know what they do.
True, you might change career, but then you’d have a different readership and blog anyway - as those that read your PR insights might have no interest in your new career as an air baloonist or sub-mariner!
more on domain namin… there are various views on this - with pros and cons all over the gaf.
Seth Godin blogged an interesting enough related article on his blog.