Buzz Bruggeman is a founder of ActiveWords and I met him after writing about ActiveWords at VA Journal. Buzz is someone Malcolm Gladwell would call a connector - he knows many, many people and has a knack for joining people together that might be able to help one another. He blogs at BuzzNovation and was gracious enough to answer some questions for me:
What made you decide to start your blog?
Back in 2001. We had shipped the first versions of ActiveWords, and I was trying to figure out how to better market our software. I had read the "Clue Train Manifesto" by Doc Sears, et. al. and had discovered that Doc had a blog. I began to read it on a regular basis, and that lead to reading more blogs. I figured out that something pretty important was going on. I met Doc, and he convinced me that I should be blogging and the rest as they say is history. Doc has also said that I am an A+ blog reader and C+ blogger.
I try to write something 3-4 times a week. I try to write about how to aggregate innovative ideas, particularly around technology. Occasionally I will lapse into a rant about politics or something unrelated. I try to write with some level of insight and passion. I try to write about things I see and/or experience. I try to write about things I care about.
What do you believe you have accomplished by blogging?
Someone once told me that the more you write, the better you write. I think and hope that I am a better writer than when I started. I also try write every third or fourth post about our product, i.e. ActiveWords, or partners or our customers. My goal is to put a human face behind our product and our team. I try to to praise good products and ideas, and suggest how to improve others. I get a lot of feedback, some by comments, but a lot by E-Mail. We, i.e. ActiveWords, have enormously benefited from the blog posts about ActiveWords by others, for which we have been enormously grateful.
Is there something that really concerns or bothers you about bloggers?
Not really! I use a news aggregator called OnFolio to read about 100 +/- different blogs, most of which are either about technology or written by smart people.
What do you really enjoy about blogging and reading blogs?
I learned a very important idea from my friend Jim McGee, i.e. http://www.mcgeesmusings.net/index.php. His theory is that the bloggers you read are like your own "intelligent agents". I think we all thought that one day we would have computer "agents' that would run around the net, and find stuff out for us. Well the reality is that reading the blog of a smart person is like having your own intelligent agent who is thinking about and filtering ideas for you, hence you get this collaborative benefit of great thinking for free.
The A-List. This gets bandied around a lot – what are your thoughts on the A-List? What does it reflect?
It obviously exists, but not sure how important it is to me. I read blogs because they are on topics that I care about, are insightful, passionate and authentic.
What three blogs would you consider “A-List”? (whether they are right now or not)
Doc Searls http://doc.weblogs.com/
Robert Scoble http://scobleizer.wordpress.com/
Dave Winer http://www.scripting.com/
They are all my good friends, they write well, passionately and know there stuff. What more can you ask for!
What impact do you think blogging will have on business?
I think the most important lesson I learned was from an Irish tech journalist who taught me to use the www.a9.com in the following way. Go to A9, and search for say ActiveWords, but make the query, "ActiveWords+problem" so that if someone has written about ActiveWords and it being a problem, you will know in a second. As the result if you want to know about any person or product, using the same logic you can instantly find out. The blogosphere has changed forever how people share information and what their takes are on just about any topic under the sun. The net result being the world which was getting flat is now even more flatter and you are a couple of clicks away from smart people with first hand knowledge and insight into all kinds of ideas that you care about, even though main stream media does not.
Once again, I've learned something from talking with Buzz. Thanks, Buzz.
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