eastwikkers

Eastwick's new agency blog

Hello!

We have just launched our new Eastwick Agency Blog. We will no longer be blogging on the eastwikkers blog.

It's just a little over two years since Eastwick, under the social media leadership of Giovanni Rodriguez, launched eastwikkers. We're really excited about building on our two years' agency blogging experience with our new blog. We've got a new look, a new format, and more bloggers than ever.

You can subscribe to our new blog via Feedburner, or our RSS feed. If you're already subscribed to eastwikkers through Feedburner, there's no need to change anything. We will change the feed address to point to the new blog.

Thank you for reading eastwikkers. We look forward to continuing the dialogue over at the new place. We're still rolling up the tarps and working on the landscaping, but please come take a look, and let me know what you think.

Joel

Why are we blogging?

Much has been written, not all of it positive, about the tendency of bloggers to blog about other bloggers. I haven’t seen much, on the other hand, about blogging about one’s own blog, so forgive me for doing so.

We’re making some changes to Eastwikkers in order to make it more reflective of who we are and what we are about. I hesitate to call it Eastwikkers 2.0, because we are perhaps past 2.0 and I despise the 2.0-ing of the web any way.

We’re asking ourselves the questions I think everyone should ask when developing a corporate blogging strategy, like:

1. What are the business and communications objectives for our blog?
2. What values do we want our blog to convey about our company?
3. What makes us, and therefore our blog, different? What is our unique point of view?
4. What subjects and themes are most relevant to our business?
5. What kind of content can we offer on our blog that has real value for our clients and our business partners?
6. Who are our natural spokespeople? Who in our company can blog from a position of credibility and passion?

Our current group blog was ably launched nearly two years ago by Giovanni Rodriguez in March 2005. Giovanni is now off doing his own impressive thing at hubbub but he built an excellent foundation that has allowed Eastwick to move just slightly ahead of most agencies by having a group blog, rather than a blog written only by senior executives. We are going to retain and build on this approach, which better reflects the diversity and experience in the agency, and engages readers in a more interesting conversation.

There are of course all kinds of tactical issues like selecting the right blogging platform and tools, and developing blogging policies and procedures (yes, we need a few.) But these are secondary considerations that cannot be addressed until the strategy is in place.

I have this thing about clichés, so I won’t say, “stay tuned.” But do watch this space, and share your ideas with us for what makes an interesting and useful agency blog.

eastwikkers -- what's next

If you are a repeat visitor to this site, you may have noticed a few changes over the past month.   First, we've added a few more writers to the stable.  Second, we've begun to take a serialized approach -- on occassion, and when it makes sense.  In the next two months we'll be making a few other changes, all with the purpose of supporting a single objective:  to make eastwikkers more a composite site, with multiple writers, on multiple beats.  Subjects we're looking at include software, hardware, the Internet, public policy, but with a particular focus on where these subjects intersect with the world of communications.  Stay tuned -- you'll be seeing some new stuff very soon.

Business Week on Blogging

Blogging is the cover story in the upcoming issue, and the magazine has done a really smart job, mocking the style of a blog. Proud to say that Eastwick gets a nod in one of several online companion pieces, on the subject of tips for corporate bloggers.

Great that a publication with this kind of clout in the biz community would commit to a cover on this subject. It's perhaps a sign that new media is finally crossing the chasm.

The Hard Launch

Actually, it wasn't so hard after all....  Today we formally launched eastwikkers, our new service for businesses that are looking for ways to integrate new-media tools into their marketing programs.  As many of you know, we've been rolling this out slowly -- a "soft launch," if you will -- with several client projects, and posts on this site.  Already three Eastwick clients are collaborating on the eastwiki, our agency-branded wiki powered by Socialtext.  We'll soon be sharing success stories, as we continue to build out the service.

Here's what we said in our announcement this morning.  The theme is collaboration.

At the core of eastwikkers is the eastwiki, an agency branded collaborative workspace powered by software vendor Socialtext. Several Eastwick clients have already begun using the eastwiki to manage internal and external communications with new media tools such as blogs, wikis, and RSS. The eastwiki was built with the knowledge that the new media sphere is increasingly promoting a more collaborative approach to corporate communications.

Eastwick is assisting clients in using the wiki to build private and public workspaces including private rooms for reporters, client collaboration sites, and topic-focused public wikis for corporate and non-profit projects. In addition to the agency wiki, the new service will provide consultation in new media training, best practices in corporate blogging, and collaboration with globally distributed marketing teams.

eastwikkers -- the beginning

March 8, 2005 -- Over the next few weeks, we'll be soft-launching a new practice at Eastwick Communications called eastwikkers.  After we work out the kinks and knots in the system -- and there are many -- we'll make more of a traditional "public" announcement.  But for now, here are the key details.

eastwikkers will be a new practice at Eastwick that provides services and technology to organizations that are looking to integrate new-media tools into their communication programs.   First customer:  Intellisync (Nasdaq: SYNC).  This site -- www.eastwikkers.com -- the public face of eastwikkers -- will be a group blog devoted to educating organizations on best practices in new media.  The blog team includes Eastwick staffers Tony Obregon, Becky Quinlan, and Giovanni Rodriguez.

*consultation/services
--new media training
--best practices in blogging, security, compliance
--collaborating with global distributed teams

*technology
--the eastwiki, an extensible wiki -- powered by the folks at Socialtext -- that businesses can use to intelligently manage the adoption of new media in their organizations.

*uses for the eastwiki
--agency wiki
--client wikis
--private rooms for reporters and analysts
--group client collaboration wikis

What do we expect to get from this new venture?  Our expectations and desires are many, and we have spoken, written -- and blogged -- on this subject as individuals.  Now we'd like to wik.  We see that we can accomplish more as a team, and that as wikkers we are better equipped to tap the "wisdom of crowds" for the benefit of our clients and the various communities -- internal and external -- that shape their identity in the marketplace.  The spirit of this blog -- the public face of eastwikkers -- is collaboration, and we invite you to work with us on this blog, and someday on our wiki.

For more information about eastwikkers, write to us at eastwikkers@eastwick.com.