Architel is a boutique IT support company located in Dallas, Texas that supports small businesses (20-100) employees.  Their unique IT service delivery model (one flat-monthly-fee for all-you-can-eat support) aligns the interests of the small business owner and Architel.  The company was a pioneer in this space and is now a pioneer in the ‘blog as corporate website’ meme.  Here are screenshots or just visit the site yourself here @ architel.com.

The site was entered in the website design contest at SXSW conference and we are crossing our fingers that the judges will enjoy the tight integration between the blog CMS and Dan’s xhtml and css.  What do you think about our work? 

In 2006, expect blogs to be standard items in the marketer’s playbook. Corporate blogs will continue to proliferate. Some will earn kudos for their honesty and informative nature, while others will be recognized as blatant, homogenized propaganda and ignored. Content blogs (such as www.AfterHoursCity.com) will deliver “street cred” for marketers smart enough to create their own slice of aggregated info and brave enough to let the consumer-generated content run unfiltered.

Brian coined the phrase and now marketers like Drew are using it.  "Blog Monitoring" services are going to be huge according to Drew,

Blog “Monitor” will be the newest, hot job in corporate communications, as marketers try to stay up on both the positive and negative buzz in the marketplace (Dell found out the hard way the importance of this role, as Jeff Jarvis’s “Buzz Machine” shamed them into replacing his malfunctioning computer). Consumer blogs will continue to multiply as mobile devices like Sony’s AIBO support blogging on the fly. Blog networks like WebLogsInc will make it easier for marketers to advertise on these sites, especially the ones that attract consistent audiences with quality writing.

Finally, Drew suggests that partnership between big players and smaller, niche players (like WeblogsWork) will become the norm, not the exception,

In the last few months alone, smaller agencies have delivered slap shots to the biggies, stealing away such prestigious accounts as Heineken, Volkswagen, Sprite and British Airways. Agencies like Mother, Strawberry Frog, Renegade Marketing and Crispin Porter and Bogusky (the Wayne Gretsky of the idea pack) are among a handful of firms that are building reputations for delivering channel neutral multi-disciplined campaigns, and driving what will be an enormous shift in how clients approach their agencies in 2006. Big clients are already starting to see the benefits again of having multiple partners, and asking each for “media neutral” ideas; it might not be long before clients designate one firm as the “idea agency”, tasked with coming up with the media & channel neutral idea, while other firms are tasked with execution according to their specialty.

"Should we get jobs? Are we nuts? Will anyone ever hire us as bloggers?"

Today it is lucrative and all-consuming for more and more marketing folks.  Hugh’s so busy he doesn’t have time to answer his own email anymore…

"Synthetic transparency involves using blogs to give the impression of openness, honesty, and transparency but without really doing so.
This notion is based on Norman Fairclough’s* idea of "synthetic personalization"** which he defines as:
… a compensatory tendency to give the impression of treating each of the people ‘handled’ en masse as an individual. Examples would be air travel (have a nice day!), restaurants (Welcome to Wimpy!) and the simulated conversation (for example, chat shows) and bonhomie which litter the media…"

From Debbie Weil via Fredrik Wacka.  Note to Weblogs Work clients – don’t do that…

Technorati Tags: adrants, blogadvergaming, budget, budgetcarrental, hugh MacLeod

Brian Clark, CEO of GMD Studios (Audi’s ad agency), indicated that almost a third of the traffic to Audi most recent A3 compaign was generated by advertising on various blogs.  The most interesting thing Brian revealed was that these advertisments only took one half of one percent of the budget.  McKinney + Silver and Adrants indicated:

"The media cost of the entire blog ad buy was less than the cost for one ad on a mainstream site such as Yahoo!" Of course "one banner ad on a mainstream site such as Yahoo" is a nebulous statement at best, however, again 29 percent of traffic to an A3 promotional website came from one half of one percent of the budget.  Shall we say it again?

[via Adrants and Hyku] 

"I know that tagging my posts has led to increased traffic from Technorati and other search tools that support tags. Granted it is very easy for me include them in my posts." 

The meeting promises to help management consultants "understand how blogging, and other on-line tactics, can build their brand communities and extend their reach."  It is quite interesting that we are starting to see more and more of these sort of events – especially here in Dallas.