CEO blogs used to be all the rage within the business blogging community. Remember when we’d hear blog consultants gush about CEOs who dared to blog with transparency and authenticity. I rarely hear much talk about CEO bloggers anymore. Do you?

Remember Jonathan Schwartz? He was the poster child of blogging CEOs, the now former (as of February 3rd) CEO of Sun Microsystems. All you could hear was crickets on Jonathan’s blog from May of last year until finally Jonathan’s farewell post on January 27. Clearly he had a few things going on; Oracle was in the process of acquiring Sun. When you’re selling your company that is pretty much all that occupies your mind. I know that first-hand, as I’m happy to say my company (Netconcepts) was acquired by Covario last month.

The thing that most struck me was the name of Jonathan’s new blog. It’s titled “What I Couldn’t Say”. Hmmm. I guess transparency within a corporation only goes so far.

With the economy is in freefall, perhaps the tolerance of various boards of directors for CEO transparency has lessened? Or it could be simply that CEOs are just too busy and blogging isn’t such a priority, now that “blog” isn’t Word of the Year anymore.

Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos, is another CEO blogger who was acquired and who we don’t hear from any longer in the blogosphere. His last post was July of last year, and that wasn’t so much of a blog post as it was a copy of a letter that was sent to all the Zappos employees announcing the acquisition by Amazon. Before that, Tony last posted in January 2009.

I’m guilty too. My own “CEO blog” hasn’t seen any activity in over a month — no posts since Covario acquired us. But the reason for my ‘radio silence’ has nothing to do with the acquirer. I may no longer be a President/CEO, but I am still encouraged to keep blogging. The reason I don’t blog frequently is the same one as last year (when I was only posting a few times a month at best): I’m preoccupied running around speaking at conferences all over the U.S., writing for magazines, etc.

Then there are the corporate blogs where the CEO occasionally chimes in with his/her own post. My acquirer, Covario, fits into that group with its “Actionable Insights” blog. Trinity Road, an etailer of religious products like first communion dresses and rosaries, has a corporate blog, but you rarely if ever hear from the CEO on it.

Then there are the CEO blogs where you wonder if it’s actually the CEO who’s blogging because it’s so polished. Steve Spangler the science toys e-tailer, I think fits into that category. If you look at the posts on Steve’s blog you’ll see a gradual evolution to a style that is more and more polished.

Chris Baggott, CEO of the Compendium Blogware, has one of the best CEO blogs out there, in my opinion. It’s full of valuable content, it’s not overly polished, his personality really shines through, and he blogs regularly. It figures though. If any CEO would have that kind of a CEO blog, it would be the CEO of a business blogging software company!

So first let me dispense with the obligatory acknowledgment that I’m sorry I haven’t blogged here in ages. I have wanted to often, but one thing and another…

On thing I’ve wanted to write about is Twitter. I’m hooked.  So far, I’ve seen precious few Tweets (as I gather its adherents call themselves) use it especially well for business communication. Mostly people complaining about being stuck in airports. Like the rest of us might find that interesting. One who does a good job keeping the posts interesting and on topic is Steve Rubel, not surprisingly.

Another shout out I’ve meant to give is the IAB’s new blog, the IABlog, under the stewardship of the IAB’s new, compelling leader, Randall Rothenberg, who also has his own blog. I’ve gotten to know Randall a bit in the past several months, and he’s a fun guy, a great intellect (excellent panel moderator), a strong leader for the IAB and really interested demonstrating the new directions of online media with initiatives like the IABlog.

When you click through to the blog, you’ll notice a photo of yours truly serenading the original IAB chairman Rich LeFurgy.  The uke is my new hobby for the past year-plus. Soon I’ll have to do a round-up of the many photos like this that already exist of me playing the uke at industry cocktail parties on blogs around the web.

The real point of this post, though, is that I’m currently at the IAB’s Annual Meeting, Ecosystem 2.0, in Phoenix, AZ. So far, it’s one of the most exciting conferences I’ve ever attended, really. Attendee list is who’s who of the industry. As I type this (blazing fast free wifi in the conference hall; see, they get it!), Randall is interviewing Susan Decker, president of Yahoo! and Jerry Yang, CEO/founder of Yahoo! You can see the other speakers yourself here, but they are consistent with these two.

Steve Rubel is here and we’re both giving running commentary on Twitter, plus the IABlog is providing updates, too. Keep your fingers crossed that they’ll post videos of the content. Wenda Millard’s speech last night, accepting the mantel as new chairperson of the IAB, was really great. I’ll post the link of the transcript or video if it’s made available.

Alright, BBC community, here’s a question for you: How do you create an effective and valuable mastermind group?

Let me explain…

If you’re in business like I am, you spend a lot of time making your own business decisions without much advice from peers or mentors. Sometimes that’s cool, but sometimes you can really make big blunders and move your company or consultancy in just plain the wrong direction. Larger companies have a group of executives who can be counted on to analyze strategic and tactical decisions, and the smartest of them have a Board of Directors, a group of senior people who offer sage advice (except, maybe, for HP, but that’s another story) and help the company grow smart, strong and true.

But I don’t have anything like that. Like many other entrepreneurs, I’m flying solo, so while the idea of a Board sounds good, I don’t really want to put anyone in the fiduciary line of fire for my business (there are legal responsibilities when you’re a board member).

Instead what I want to create is a small group of entrepreneurs and business folk here in Colorado who have the savvy and experience to help me steer my business in the right direction and, hopefully, I’ll be able to help them do the same. It’s basically a board of advisors, but I’m going to refer to it by the more appealing name of a mastermind group.

And so my question. Are you in a mastermind group of any sort? If so, please do share logistical details like how often you meet, how long the meetings are, how many members you have, what membership criteria you use, etc etc. If you aren’t, why not consider creating one in your own local community?

I’m not fishing for people to join my mastermind group as I already have a couple of sharp and successful colleagues with whom I’ve been noodling this idea, I’m more just interested in the logistics, in the pragmatic day-to-day implementation of a mastermind group for successful entrepreneurs.

Thanks for any insight you can offer!

I have to eat my words and offer a public apology to Josh Hallet, whose BlogOrlando UnConfererence I questioned the validity of in this forum.

In that piece, I charged that UnConferences were essentially anti-capitalistic over-reactions to the sins of the current approach to conferences. I questioned their value, recalling an UnConference I attended at the ripe young age of 16 which degenerated in to chaos.

I got some feedback from people telling me that I shouldn’t be so harsh in my judgement of UnConferences, that I should attend one before I make such rash statements in the future.

Such an opportunity arose this weekend when I attended PodCamp Boston, a gathering of podcasters and videocasters designed to teach each other what they’ve learned about the art, craft and business of podcasting.

An agenda that looked informative and useful emerged as the days for the conference approached. An impressive list of experts and well known figures within podcasting steadily grew as well, making the conference that much more valuable for me to attend.

It was a free conference, but it was looking early on like something of great value to me, so I signed on as a $250 sponsor — which I would have been glad to pay anyway just to rub elbows with the quality of people who would be attending.

The sessions moved along quickly and were quite lively with enthusiastic participation from the attendees — much more so than other conferences I’ve attended where people tend to fall into catatonic states unless the speaker was particularly charismatic.

Anti-capitalistic? Hardly. The organizers did all they could to facilitate good networking and introducing those who would benefit greatly from meeting each other.

I learned a great deal in the time I was there, and hope I was useful to others as well. Not only that, despite being a dyed in the wool introvert, I ended up joining three local organizations which will help continue the learning path I’m on. It will also help me in my networking about, learning more of the right people that I should be talking to.

So Josh, you were right, I was wrong. The UnConference can in fact be a tremendous opportunity to learn more about the topics you are interested in.

I would recommend corporate bloggers seek out these venues as well to increase their knowledge on their blogging skills. They only cost you the time, energy and knowledge you put into them — which will serve to increase their value substantially.

The American Marketing Association has just launched this blog to support its seminar series Blogs: Marketing Beyond the Website. (BTW, the NY event on January 21st, in which I will be participating, is filling up nicely, I’m pleased to say.) Dana VanDen Heuvel, who set up the blog, describes its mission this way in an email to the group of authors:

The AMA blog can be characterized as a vehicle for promoting the event, a clearinghouse for marketing weblog related topics, an overall ‘drive-to’ engine for the seminars, and a repository for "blogging from the seminar’ type content.  All while being geared toward MARKETERS.  What this blog is not is another blog about blogging for the sake of blogging. I know, that’s pretty narrow in focus, but that’s why we originally created the weblog.  Further, it stands to reason that a seminar, on the topic of weblogs, by the de facto organization of record for marketing, should have its own blog.

UPDATE:
For anyone in the NY area interested, a group of us will be getting together for dinner after the event. Details on Church of the Customer.

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The American Marketing Association is holding a three-city seminar in the coming weeks about business blogging in Seattle (Dec 17), New York (Jan 21)  and  Chicago (Feb 18). Chaired by business blogger Toby Bloomberg. From the sales copy:

Internet surfers, advertisers, journalists and even politicians do it. But are blogs a credible marketing strategy for your brand or company? Experienced bloggers answer your questions and show how to incorporate the newest internet-based strategy into your organization’s marketing plan. Leave this marketing blog workshop with innovative ideas and specific techniques to apply directly to your own marketing strategy.

Costs $695 to attend for non-AMA members (only slightly cheaper for members).

AMA: Blogs: Marketing Beyond the Website

A blog for CEOs who blog. Why? Because they can.

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In yet another example of how every industry and professional association should have a blog, the ACCA has been blogging up a storm (albeit a refreshingly cool, breezy storm) of industry and member news for the past several months.

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Harold Jarche

Harold Jarche is a consultant specialized in helping organizations improve performance efficiency through combination of technology and education. He started blogging earlier this year on topics (recently) including tele-education, human performance analysis and university course management systems.

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Robert Liodice, president and CEO of the ANA, has been blogging for a little over a month. The ANA is one of premier industry trade associations for marketing industry. I have to say, I’m surprised that “a suit” seems to really get blogging as well as Loidice demonstrates. For example, he links to Wikipedia to clarify concepts in his posts, which is a smart blogger thing to do. Not surprisingly, he uses the blog to boost for the industry (e.g., “Great (Not Just Good) Times Are Ahead for Marketers”), but he also uses it to comment on an initiative of another industry association (“NAB Responsible Programming Taskforce”) as well as to respond to how the press is clarifying ANA initiatives (“NUDG: What Really Happened”). A great example of why every industry association should adopt this handy communication tool.

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Infrequently updated blog for an education association:

Working towards the revitalization of American education in the 21st century by reorganizing educators in a professional and entrepreneurial association.

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Frequently updated blog that’s been around for more than a year as of this post. Here’s from the organization’s about Us page:

The mission of the International Association for Learning Alternatives is to lead, promote and support learning alternatives and choice options.

This mission signals our interest in seeing that parents and students have choices of educational programs to meet their needs, interests, learning styles and intelligences. We believe that one-size education program does not fit everyone and that education is best served by having choices for all.

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Kennesaw State University’s Public Journalism Network. From the organization’s charter statement:

The Public Journalism Network is a global professional association of journalists and educators interested in exploring and strengthening the relationship between journalism and democracy.
We believe journalism and democracy work best when news, information and ideas flow freely; when news fairly portrays the full range and variety of life and culture of all communities; when public deliberation is encouraged and amplified; and when news helps people function as political actors and not just as political consumers.

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Another great example of a small organization using a weblog to keep the site dynamic and useful.

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