My thoughts on John Robb
I wondered when this was going to come up. John Robb is a pioneer in Business, which he publicly started talking about two years ago. It is understandable that he’s upset about the Red Couch deal…except for one thing, missed opportunity.
I think the record should be set straight. Robert Scoble and Shel Israel are not pioneers of Business. I’ve always attempted to make this distinction - there is a difference between an employee for a company maintaining a private blog talking about their employer and using blogs in a corporate setting. It’s like apple and oranges. I am not taking away the achievements Robert’s made because he’s earned them. They pushed for a book deal and got it.
Robert says that John is working on a book deal as well and I hope he gets it because it will most likely cover a different perspective. John has years of experience with implementing blogs in a corporate structure. He has a wealth of valuable information to share.
The honest truth is that John Robb was out there with this years before anyone else - and he should have pushed it. There was just one problem - John Robb is not as well know as Robert Scoble but whose fault is that? Robert took his blog and made it something. John Robb could have done the same thing - made more of a name for himself. Because the truth the Scoble name is drawing attention to this book. That’s the way it works and John admits this. If you pioneered something and someone else is getting paid, trust me, it would rub you the wrong way.
That doesn’t take away from Robert’s accomplishments. I don’t think people realize how much pressure is on Robert and Shel to do “the best blogging book” and only time will tell if it will be well received. They have a mountain of hurdles to cross - for example stopping the material from being distributed on the internet and determining what comments about their book are valid and which one steers them away from their goals. Doing it in public is not an easy task.
In the end only time will tell if they do the right thing. If the book is accurate they need to mention John Robb in the book because he was the pioneer of Business. If John would agree to an interview that would be even better. Dave made a post about this and he’s 100% correct - give credit where credit is due. I do not think John deserves anything financially - if you want it work to get it. I do think he deserves credit out of respect because he was the first - it’s a simple as that.
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Robert Scoble Says:
Tyme: I do NOT agree with your thesis that John’s a pioneer and I’m not. I was doing a lot of the same thinking that John was. I worked with him. It was a collaborative effort.
I had a blog before he did.
I wrote the corporate weblogger’s manifesto. He didn’t.
If he’s a pioneer, so am I.
The thing is, neither of us are on the same level as Dave Winer was and is in terms of being a pioneer.
Posted on March 2nd, 2005 at 9:03 am
Tyme Says:
I did not say you were not a pioneer. In my opinion you are definitely a pioneer in blogging, not particularly Business.
John had a focused area to discuss the topic – dedicated to the topic. But he didn’t keep it up and in my opinion dropped the ball to make the all the claims he is making. Does he deserve mention? Yes, because he had a focused area on the topic and was one of the first to do that. IMO, Dave deserves a mention as well. I don’t think John deserves anymore than that because as I said, he dropped the ball.
You on the other hand (IMO) took the ball and ran with it. You have your personal blog where you speak on a wide variety of topics. Yes, Business is one of those topics but (again IMO) you are a prime example of expressing yourself, how to handle positive and negative feedback, how to maintain the balance between placing personal and business items on your blog, etc. Not only companies look up to you, personal bloggers do as well, and I think that is the key to your success. Your blog exploded with popularity last year, it was earned and well deserved. Your passion shows in your posts (and your comments LOL).
But the fact remains that your blog is a personal blog where you speak about whatever you want and you’ve successfully maintained your employment where others would have been fired (and have been fired). You know your business culture well enough to know when you are crossing the line and you don’t cross it and if nothing else comes across in your book I hope that point does.
Do you see yourself as a pioneer of Business or blogging in general? I think more people would categorize you as a blogger than a “business blogger”. Instead of focusing on the pioneer aspect to me the bigger picture is who is more passionate about blogging? Who has more experience blogging? Who is more qualified to write a book? To me those are more important than who did it first.
Posted on March 2nd, 2005 at 9:03 am
Jason Says:
If his blog was about Business I would agree he would be a business blogger. Since he talks about a lot of topics I would classify him as a blogger, not a niche blogger of any sort.
You bring up a good point - is he qualified to write a book? Yes. And I think it is because of his broad blogging skills that makes him more qualified.
You bring up another good point. Just because someone is a pioneer doesn’t mean they automatically remain qualified on the topic.
Good post but I bet you’re going to get flamed over it.
Posted on March 2nd, 2005 at 9:03 am