Mgsm Blog Review and Recommendations

¶ … MGSM Blog

Review and Recommendations for the MGSM blog

The intent of this analysis is to review the Marshall Goldsmith School of Management (MGSM) blog, comparing it to other business schools' blogs, generating an analysis and series of recommendations. Initiatives and strategies to drive blog traffic for the MGSM blog are defined and an assessment of the MGSM blogs' strengths and weaknesses are also provided. Recommendations for increasing the traffic to the MGSM blog including four ways to increase traffic and interest are also presented in this analysis. The design and structural precepts of Web 2.0 technologies as defined by O'Reilly (2006) are used as the basis of this analysis, and are shown in Appendix A of this document. Web 2.0 design precepts and principles continue to define social networking applications as well. Based on an analysis of rapid adoption of social networking and the growth of applications as a result, a summary of the most pervasively used applications are provided in Appendix B which is titled Web 2.0 Applications. The groundswell effect occurring as a result of social networking (Bernoff, Li, 2008) includes blogs as well. Blogs, according to the analysis of Web 2.0 design criteria as defined by O'Reilly (2006), are redefining collaboration and increasing the accessibility of information globally. The intent of this analysis is to provide insights into how the MGSM blog can attain best practices in social networking.

Usability of the MGSM Blog

The MGSM blog today is fundamentally structured to provide navigational ease of use. The links to MGSM related sites including the Home Page, Business Programs and Alliant International University site. The design of the links to the right includes an archive of blog entries and MGSM contacts with e-mail addresses and telephone numbers.

The MGSM blog site follows the basic conventions of the Blogger hosted software that is meant as a basic platform to get started with social networking. Blogger is a free blogging service owned and hosted by Google (Wyld, 2008). Its usability is fundamental and its scalability excellent given the fact that Google's software engineers manage the virtualization platform that runs the Blogger application (Vara, 2004).What Blogger has in terms of scalability and stability it lacks in terms of customization and the ability to over time reflect the unique identity of a person or organization using it. As a result the MGSM blog is highly usable, and the comments indicate that students find the ability to post messages to blog entries relatively easy to use. The navigation is made very effective by the chronological listing of entries along the right side of the screen and support for comments posted completely, not just in linked form, also makes the blog exceptionally usable as well. For all this flexibility however the blog sacrifices more potential for differentiation and could be made significantly more valuable over time. Later in this analysis recommendations are made for making the blog more valuable and timely as an information resource and collaboration platform.

Comparative Analysis of College and University Blogs

For purposes of completing a comparative analysis, the blogs from the Graziadio School of Business and Management at Pepperdine University, the Innovation Blog at the Paul Merage School of Business at University of California Irvine, and the UCLA Anderson School of Management blog are included. Each of these blogs has slightly different objectives and their content reflects that variation in purpose. They all however share the common objective as does the MGSM blog of seeking to create a greater level of collaboration with potential students, actively enrolled students, faculty, staff and potential faculty interested in teaching at MGSM. From this standpoint all blogs included in this analysis are attempting to fuel the groundswell Bernoff & Li (2008) speak of in terms of connecting and communicating with others and giving them a voice in how the organizations respond and tailor programs to unmet needs.

Traditionally institutions of higher learning would concentrate on using blogs as a primary means to impart knowledge, a use of these collaborative platforms many college and university libraries are finding invaluable (Schrecker, 2008). As the knowledge of business often blends the practical and the theoretical and the depth of expertise a learning institution has is often part of their brand or reputation (Lowrie, 2007). Pepperdine's blog takes this approach by Associate Professors write thoughtful and potentially controversial posts on the ethics of sports celebrity and endorsements given the recent Tiger Woods revelations. The blog posts are meant serve as a catalyst of debate and discussion online, thereby fulfilling the design precepts of Web 2.0 technology-based applications (O'Reilly, 2006). This approach also by its very nature of combining the expertise of one of Pepperdine University's Associate Professors to an issue of ethics and business also promotes conversation and involvement, which is critical for any social networking strategy being effective or not (Kreitzberg, 2009).

Another blog that is using its expertise to create a unique online brand is the Innovation Blog at the Paul Merage School of Business at University of California Irvine. This blog is primarily focused on innovation and has a series of written blog posts about various aspects of how companies are being creative in a challenging economic environment. This blog is also innovative from the standpoint of offering role-based navigation for business leader or students. This navigation can be seen across the top of the blog. There is also a series of topics, a blog roll where over time the authors writing for this blog will list blogs of potential interest, and also a list of topics. The branding of the blog also ties it back to the Paul Merage School of Business clearly. In short, this blog seeks to also communicate expertise at the Paul Merage School of Business at UCI as being thought leaders in innovation. The role-based content for business leaders includes a wealth of information and knowledge including ideation, future planning, leadership style, strategy and vision, and eleven different industry groupings. Clearly the Paul Merage School of Business is using its blog as a means to communicate its unique value proposition of expertise in new venture creation and best practices in management. Branding of colleges or universities is as much about the inherent value of the educational experience leading to a degree as it is about the marketing of core competencies and strengths as well (Lowrie, 2007). The Paul Merage School of Business marketing strategy is one of showing thought leadership in key areas to attract new students and also recruit potential students for its senior executive MBA program as well.

The third blog included in the analysis is from the UCLA Anderson School of Management. This blog is structured to give students online resources to get their necessary registration materials in on time, assist new graduate students to get a place to stay and also get acclimated to the UCLA campus, and also provide links to graduate student blogs. The MBA Student Voice blog provides an accurate representation of what typical stresses students have as they go through a semester, complete with descriptions of team projects and studying for exams. While UCLA has not gone in the direction of the Paul Merage School of Business at UCI or the Graziadio School of Business and Management at Pepperdine University in terms of highlighting thought leadership, they are the strongest of the blogs profiled at being a practical source of information for students. The UCLA blog does represent how many organizations use blogs, specifically as a rapid publishing system to get time-critical information out to students and in the case of companies, their customers (Wyld, 2008). The UCLA blog is not as interactive and open to collaborative communication as the MGSM, Pepperdine or UCI blogs yet it does accomplish its purpose of being a communications channel to students and anyone interested in learning more about the program. The UCLA blog is also the only one that has links to the popular social networking sites Facebook and Twitter as well. The role of Twitter as a micrblogging social networking site is revolutionizing how organizations stay connected with and relevant to those they serve (McFedries, 2007). Combining Facebook and Twitter, UCLA has the ability to create more long-term relationships with potential future student's using the former and provide real-time updates using the latter. In short, UCLA has created a means for communicating and potentially collaborating with prospective and current students across a spectrum of social networking channels. This is the point Bernoff & Li have made in their concept of the social networking groundswell (2008) and the need for connecting with and communicating to customers in their articles' examples. Customers could just as easily be students from the UCLA perspective, hence their focus on having multiple channels to communicate with them. From the longer-term Facebook approach to the blogging platform they are using for current information, to immediate news via Twitter, UCLA is the most multichannel focused of all blogs and social networking strategies analyzed.

In summary, the strengths of the Pepperdine and UCI blogs are their uses of blogs as collaborative platforms to share the expertise and thought leadership they have. This is essential to their approach to defining their broader unique value proposition and differentiation as well (Lowrie, 2007). Pepperdine and UCI are using their blogs for branding as much as they are about communicating and collaborating with students and members of the community interested in their areas of research and focus. As a result both the Pepperdine and UCI blogs have created a level of collaboration and initiated conversations through the use of blogs as well. The most advanced multichannel-based approach to using social networking is seen in how UCLA has created Facebook, blogs and Twitter accounts to communicate with students in whatever form they prefer. For some students Facebook is the best approach as they spend the majority of their free time in this social networking application, while others are accustomed to using RSS Readers (Wyld, 2008) to quickly read through blogs. UCLA however does not engage in as many thought-provoking discussions as Pepperdine or UCI. UCLA excels from its multichannel focus in social networking yet lacks the collaborative strengths that the MGSM blog, Pepperdine and UCI blogs promote.

Driving Traffic to the MGSM Blog

For the MGSM blog to generate greater levels of traffic over time its content needs to evolve and stay in step with the interests and needs of those reading it. The blog must become increasingly relevant to readers if they are to return to it as regular visitors, driving up the traffic levels as a result. One of the best approaches to driving traffic up to the blog is to regularly complete surveys of the readers and ask what they are interested in seeing content about (Wyld, 2008). Second, the MGSM blog is at times focused on being an information resource as UCLA is doing, and at times is comparable to the Pepperdine or UCI blogs in that thought leadership is shown. For traffic to increase to the blog, one specific goal and series of supporting strategies need to be first defined. Then the blog will also attract a consistently loyal following. There is only one streaming video on the MGSM blog today as well. Increasing this area of the blog by interviewing professors about how companies are weathering the economic conditions today would be interesting and useful. In order to drive traffic up on the site there also needs to be more freedom to say what members of the faculty really think. The best blogs take a firm position and show passion for a given perspective on topics and have above all else, conviction combined with intelligence in their writing (Lamont, 2009). Even for an academic institution there has to be a position taken on issues for the reader to become engaged. To be too politically correct on a blog is to risk being too risk averse and not really adding value to the conversation with blog readers and those on social networking sites.

Comparing the Strengths and Weaknesses of MGSM Blog

The strengths of the MGSM blog include its usability and clean graphical layout, its accountability and credibility as there are actual person's names and telephone numbers listed on the site itself, and the open platform it has created for managing comments from subscribers. Another nascent or emerging strength is the use of video, as is shown in the single YouTube clip of a student being interviewed about the MGSM student experience. Social networking's greatest strength is in creating a collaborative, open communication platform (Bernoff, Li, 2008). Clearly the MGSM blog needs to do more of this.