I got the following email from a friend today that I hadn’t talked to in a year or so (see – email isn’t dead…).

Brad,

Just wanted to drop you a quick note to let you know I am planning to start using Rally on several projects I am working on as a “Rent-a-cto”. 

Blog + Marketing = Blarketing

I got turned on to these guys from reading about them in your Blog.

Hope all is well in Feldland!

Earlier today, I gave an interview about the used of RSS / Blogging in corporate marketing and sales activity.  I dissed the  “blogs as an extension of a lame-ass corporate marketing campaign” stuff pretty hard.  In the interview, I tried to explain that part of the value of the blog communication is honest, trusted, forthright point of views.  You don’t have to agree with me – but you know I’m saying what I mean.  Once this cycle of trust is broken – which is true whenever one shifts into a “corporate marketing” function (“I’m going to tell you want I think you want to hear in order to buy my product”) – things get stupid and gross pretty fast.

But Blarketing – and Brogging – is different.  I’ve talked about Brogging before in the context of “Bragging about one of my companies” on my blog.  Yeah – it’s promotion – but I’m proud of the work being done and I want the world to know.  Blarketing is similar – I’m trying to tell you about real stuff that I think is good and worthwhile.  If I stear you wrong and BS you, you’ll decide I’m full of crap and start ignoring me.  So – there’s a built in governer on my behavior.  I think this is broadly true for a medium like blogging – I get immediate feedback if I’m spewing out useless shit – and I know this – so I try to communicate relevant stuff, transparently, and with as much clarity and frankness as I can muster.

We’ll go through plenty of ups and downs along the way to using RSS / Blogging as an effective marketing medium.  I’ve already seen a lot of new memes get propagated and I look forward to seeing some of these silly words take hold.

I got this email after my interview.  If I had read it beforehand, I might have accomplished coining a new term today (which we should attribute to my friend Marvin Scaff – thanks Marvin).  Does it count if it’s in print in blog vs. traditional media?