Connie Bensen

This post needs to start with a disclaimer. When I was at the library we had slips to give the customers saying that we are not responsible for providing legal or medical advice. That goes for this post as well.

This purpose of this is to start discussion & get you thinking about intellectual property & your online presence. What I have learned has been through experience & it taught me some valuable lessons. I mentioned them on Chris Brogan’s post about how valuable your personal brand is & the big risk for corporate trust agents. As a result I was asked to go into more detail.

Again I have no legal training, but can we agree that words need definitions & a contract is nothing more than sets of words. But those words need definitions, right? The interpretations of contracts is fine when both sides agree. But if they don’t then it’s a legal question.

So as knowledge workers, we need to consider the definition of Intellectual Property in regard to the content we’re creating & how it could be interconnected with a corporate brand.

Intellectual property (IP) is a legal field that refers to creations of the mind such as musical, literary, and artistic works; inventions; and symbols, names, images, and designs used in commerce, including copyrights, trademarks, patents, and related rights. Under intellectual property law, the holder of one of these abstract properties has certain exclusive rights to the creative work, commercial symbol, or invention by which it is covered.

Now, here are some things to think about when you’re blogging or creating user generated content. And this is all meant to generate more questions …and maybe we can find some legal expertise to weigh in?

• What does your company view as intellectual property when you’re working for them?
• Was there an amendment that explains that anything created by you while working for them is theirs? Does this include:
• blog posts about their products or brand? (possibly on your blog?)
• tutorials & user-generated content that you create (on your 3rd party site?)
• your ideas & potential new business opportunities for you for a certain period of time after you leave employment?

On the flip side if you’re a company having your contractors & evangelists to create user generated content & blog about your product. I will suggest that the best path is to show appreciation to these people who are loyal & uphold your brand (even if you’re paying them). I don’t understand the point of the corporate legal department quibbling about ownership of intellectual property that is supporting your company & customers? As pointed out in the book Groundswell it’s all about relationships. And when it comes to the relationship between contractors/employees & the brand/company I think that user generated content & personal blogging are going to start challenging traditional norms.

Some quick suggestions:

• agreeing in advance of employment or contracting is much easier – I specifically state that all of the content on my blog is mine
• both the company & employee should know & understand
• the bounds of the blogging policy
• acceptable interactions in social networks
• whether participating is acceptable on work time (reading blogs, microblogging, participating in social networks, etc)
• your blog’s domain name is not owned by you – it’s like a phone number which you pay an annual fee to maintain it. (I tend to think of my blog URL as my property, but it’s not).

I’d love to hear your ideas & comments. And it would be great if you can bring the legal aspect to this. The topic of intellectual property is going to become more relevant as we continue to produce content online. What do you think?

Here is a link to the interview that Jeff Chandler did with me. It’s 53 min’s long. We talked about building community, networking & personal branding. He did a great job & had some good questions.

One of the listeners sent me an email asking a couple of questions:

I’ve never understood clearly the workings of trackbacks, etc. ( I do realize the value, just not how to use them), I was hoping you could explain to me just what you meant by that statement – "put backlinks in comments".

Trackbacks are created on my post when someone links to the article from their post. A portion of the quote from their post is shown. They are helpful because they show who has referenced your blog post & continued writing about what you’ve written on. And they contribute towards SEO because they show that your wrote something worth linking to.

Backlinks in comments are something else. When I comment on someone’s blog post, I will sometimes leave a link to an article that I’ve written that offers more information on the topic.

The difference is timing:

If I were to respond to the post & write an article linking to the post then that would create a trackback on that person’s post. When I put a link to my blog post in the comment section it’s because my post was written first. If you do this you want to make sure that your link is relevant & adds value to the post. I will also add links to other resources from around the web (not just mine).

The backlinks then create legacy links. Imagine the links that you’ve sprinkled around the web in your topic area (don’t do it all the time). I call them ‘legacy links’ & they provide paths for future readers to find your blog.

In Feedburner I can see where my traffic is coming from. Two came over from a comment I made on Chris Brogan’s post on Skills of a Community Manager. And one came over from RWW’s post on Hiring a Community Manager.

Both of these posts had over 60 comments, but people continue to read the posts. Imagine the effect over a period of time? So I refer to them as legacy links because they help new people find my work on that subject. Usually they are learning & mining blogs. Some people say that this isn’t acceptable, but I’ve never been criticized for it (or told to not do it).

Tips:

• Identify who the influencers are in your niche with lots of traffic. Although everyone likes comments.
• Comment early on (although I don’t think that matters). Sometimes I enjoy leaving a comment after many people have (that’s especially the case on Chris Brogan’s blog).

Does this make sense? What are your tips?

Today I’m sending you to my guest post on Darren Rowse’s blog, Problogger.net.

When Darren asked for a guest post we chatted about what the topic should be.

He suggested ‘Taking your Blog to a Community’ which is a broad canvas. I wrote a compilation of ideas for extending awareness of your blog or site to new communities.

Many of you read Darren’s blog regularly. If you’re not familiar with his work I recommend that you browse his blog (especially if you’re just starting to blog). He has amazing ideas.

Thank you Darren for the opportunity to share my community building ideas with your community. And thank you for introducing your community to my blog & work! That was one of my main points: Collaboration is a great connector.

I hope that you find the ideas useful. Building community is fascinating & very gratifying.

In writing this it occurred to me that I have enough readers to invite guest posts. So I invite you to email me with the topic(s) you’d like to write a guest post on. My email address is on the left under my photo.

Blog commenting is probably one of the easier things to accomplish when I’m traveling. I’m using Jeremiah Owyang‘s tip of having blog ideas created in advance.

In my first post I listed my methodology for starting or rebuilding a blog. I’ve used it twice. There’s an aspect that’s more important than that & it bears repeating:

“It’s not all about you & your blog!

There is a much bigger world out there & you are but one voice, so you need to join the collective:

1. read other people’s blogs & comment – use a blog reader

• get involved & ask questions
• provide value & insight for them based on their writing & encourage them to grow

2. respond to their post on your blog if if your response is too long for a comment

• make sure that you reference the original post & use their static link (people appreciate the link love)
• this introduces your readers to a blog that you enjoy (a form of sharing your friend’s blog)
• sometimes it’s wise to wait a day or so if it’s an emotional response – maybe pretend that you’re writing to your boss?

3. comment on blogs that reference you & your writing

• use Google alerts & Technorati to see who’s writing about you & your blog
  • follow those links & respond to the conversation
  • it’s a great way to build brand
• allow trackbacks & follow them

4. show appreciation for the sharing of knowledge by your network

• utilize a variety of formats – Twitter, Facebook, blogs, etc
• remember that it’s a group effort & we can do more together!

What ideas do you have for commenting on blogs? Have you gotten to know people through their blogs? Share your experiences.