We have worked with Business Link for London for quite some time, helping them develop their online services such as their web site, intranet and extranets such as the award-winning Knowledge Centres project. Business Link for London are perhaps the biggest single business support agency in Europe in terms of budget and given the rich tapestry of SME life in our lovely city, they are the first port of call for many thousands of small ventures.
And guess what? They finally got blogging!
The Business Link for London team have written up a useful factsheet on blogging for SMEs, which complements existing knowledgebases about using IT and the Web within an SME context and working as a graphic or Web designer.
They have also set up two experimental blogs (with more to come) in order to connect their users more directly with the personal experience of other SME principals.
The Women's Business Centre blog is hosted by the lovely Roya Jackoby, a designer who has recently worked with the Guardian and others on some excellent educational websites, and her first post How I came to love doing business attracted a very healthy 21 comments, which suggests there is a desire out there for real human conversation and networking as a business support service.
Elsewhere on the site, Johnathan Frankel has been running a useful Diary of a Startup weblog that shares some of the pain, frustration and joy of setting up a new business.
If these blogs prove successful in generating real conversations with London-based SMEs, I am sure we will see more in the future.
Well done to the Business Link for London team for convincing their colleagues that this is a cheaper, more authentic and successful way forward for business support than the traditional 'funded project' approach!
Business Link for London:
Sector-specific blogs for informal customer feedback and discussion
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