Sunday 27 November 2011

In search of excellence

The latest issue of the CMI magazine, Professional Manager, carries this amazing quote: "no single thing in the last 15 years professionally has been more important to my life than blogging". That's from Tom Peters, internationally-renowned management guru, best-selling author, and (I imagine) multi-millionaire.

Peters, of course, was co-author of 1982's In Search of Excellence, arguably one of the most discredited success manuals, as many of the "excellent" companies cited in the book nose-dived shortly afterwards. But history has been kinder to Peters, as evidence shows his excellent companies outperforming the Dow Jones index.

Nevertheless, it's sobering to see how highly he rates blogging, and without having read his blog(s), I'm guessing he's had more success than I've had. I've been blogging here for nearly five years, and can't claim to have established much of a following. This was brought home to me when a colleague and I recently started a Twitter account, @AirthreyLtd, and within a couple of weeks have already attracted twice as many followers as this blog.

So what am I doing wrong? I've consulted all the usual online sources, such as the 101 tips here, and I either do these already, or have considered and rejected them for rational reasons. Is my niche really of so little interest? I'd welcome feedback (asking for feedback is one of top tips, naturally!) - what can I do to make this blog more attractive to followers?

...and congratulations to my erstwhile colleague, Colin Millar, who has won CMI's inaugural Ambassador blogging competition.

1 comment:

Colin Millar said...

Hi Ken,

Many thanks for the congratulations, very much appreciated!

I share your pain re: traffic to blogs. I tend to syndicate my blogs out to other sites and then publish them on my own blog after a respectable period.

I've had blogs published on BusinessScene; RapidBI; BusinessFundas; Famous Bloggers and Linked2Leadership and you tend to get a much wider audience because there's a whole host of contributing authors tackling various topics.

My blog (http://rantingscot.wordpress.com) tends to be more focussed to leadership and management and many of the syndicates are happy to take an article on this topic whilst covering myriad others such as social media; search engine optimisation; sales etc.

I'll add your blog to my 'blogroll' too. I think there is a much wider audience for your materials but I wonder if some businesses and people don't yet realise they do need to evaluate training and learning as a RoI?

My forthcoming blog "The 'Director Imperative'" actually makes similar points and I think in the age of austerity (or reality perhaps?), people will need to focus more keenly on RoI across all business activities.

I'll be a regular visitor now!

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