Issue link: http://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/59881
WRITING ABOUT THEM REGULARLY HELPS YOU PUT THE PIECES OF THE PUZZLE TOGETHER." —James Garven, Baylor University sity's Kelley School of Busi- ness in Bloomington, Ras- musen has kept a blog since May 2003 at www.rasmusen .org. Unlike Grace, he had no compunctions about blogging—even though an August 2003 blog entry he posted on homosexuality garnered him negative attention from university administrators. "Free discussion is im- portant to scholarship, so I never let my pride or fear of Obviously, faculty bloggers should be careful about what they post. Be- cause blogs are public, faculty who post controversial opinions or criti- cism of their universities do so at their own risk, as Eric Rasmusen dis- covered. A professor of economics and public policy at Indiana Univer- shuts down their accounts," Bensi says. "But universities want to pro- vide e-mail services to alumni on a long-term basis for networking and fund-raising purposes." So, a busi- ness school with 5,000 students and 30,000 alumni may provide 35,000 e-mail accounts this year. In two years, that number grows to 40,000 accounts, and, in another ten, to 65,000 or more. "Over time, a university has a buildup of accounts," says Bensi. "Any expansion involves increased hardware, maintenance, and data storage costs. Universities, especially those using systems developed inter- nally, don't always have the techno- logical resources to continue to keep their systems up-to-date." Outsourcing e-mail services that are compatible with a university's being wrong stop me," says Ras- musen. "But I write my blog for my- self as much as for anyone else. I view it as a record of ideas, facts, and links I find useful—a record I'm will- ing to let others see." Still, the fact that blogs are so public is also their most significant Web portal and servers from a third party can be a lower-cost option, he says. For instance, an internal e-mail system may cost a university $1 to $2 per user per month, while an out- sourced system can reduce that cost to less than $1. Founded in 1998, Outblaze cur- rently handles more than 200 million e-mails for 35 million users daily for companies such as Verizon, Dell, and LinuxMail.org. To enter the educa- tion market, says Bensi, "Outblaze has the scale to easily add and sub- tract hundreds of thousands of email accounts for schools each semester, implement the newest technologies at the lowest cost, and monitor the network for dangerous or inappro- priate e-mail." For more information on Out- blaze, visit www.outblaze.com. benefit. Faculty bloggers receive comments not only from students and other faculty, but from others in- terested in their ideas. In this way, professors can use blogs to educate the public about business and as cat- alysts for their own research. Because blog readers, as a group, tend to be less critical than formal peer review panels, blogging offers professors an open forum to test out ideas before pursuing them further. Well-read blogs also provide valu- able exposure to academics, says Grace. "Our external affairs staff is always trying to get our profes- sors' names into newspaper arti- cles," he says. "This is a way to get the name of the university in front of people." For any busi- D ATA B I T ness professor new to blogging, Rasmusen and Grace have some advice. First, says Rasmusen, decide According to Forrester Re- search, based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, there will be an upsurge in the off- shoring of U.S. jobs in the next year. It estimates that 830,000 jobs will leave the U.S. in 2005, a 40 percent increase over its previous estimate. In the long term, the company estimates that 3.4 million jobs will go off- shore by 2015. what kind of blogger to be. "Busi- ness bloggers should decide whether they are (a) taking notes for them- selves, (b) writing a regular journal on topics of the day, or (c) writing an irregular posting of ideas and facts on topics of lasting interest." Finally, if they want their blog to be a destination for readers, aca- demics should choose a specialty to better create a blog that inspires other people to respond, says Grace. "It may take a while to find a niche, but it's important to find a specialty and stake out your territory," Grace advises. "Just like in business, mar- ket yourself." BizEd JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2005 47