Review About: Blackline

Author

 A. Hoppe (N/R)
Rating:
*****

Relationship
Monday, July 24, 2006
Review #1470

As part of my work within the central web team at the World Health Organization in Geneva, my job is to explore new technologies and/or developments on the web and make recommendations internally, which then find their way into best practices, policies, guidelines... While "corporate blogging" was in everyone's mouth, we were lacking a clear picture, and had no real experience from which to predict how such a means of communication would be useful to an intergovernmental organization such as ours.

During a workshop held at the University of Geneva, Philippe Borremans not only answered all our questions, but he also provided many examples, shared much of his vast experience and flexibly developed the topics of corporate blogging and RSS along the needs of his audience while following a very clear structure. During break times, he would take the opportunity to learn from participants about our goals and challenges, and what plans we had to employ these current communication channels. This information allowed Philippe to select those examples and elaborate on those particular aspects that would most likely be the focus of our work.

Having attended a number of conferences and workshops, I particularly valued the fact that Philippe is actually very passionate about the topic of corporate blogging. While subjects limited to technology often provoke a rather dry approach to avoid leaving an impression of bias with the audience, this workshop took into account the social, cultural and of course the commercial backdrop and showed that this development in web communications is merely part of a broad paradigm change in society - an aspect which would be fatal to ignore. So rather than presenting a checklist of pros and cons, Philippe showed what great opportunities exist, and how to circumnavigate potential challenges in implementing them. In short - Philippe's workshop was ideal for those who actually want to leverage the new communications channels for the benefit of their organizations.
 
Tags: blogCommunicationworkshopRSScorporate blogging