Recently I attended the Boston chapter meeting of the PM Forum....

The topic was using the Internet to market a professional services firm. One of the session's speakers, Paul Dunay, the Director of Global Field Marketing for BearingPoint who also writes his own blog, made a comment that I found simply astounding. And unbelievably, his comments appeared to resonate with most of the audience.

In so many words, he said that professionals -- and by association, their firms' marketing directors -- should be extremely careful before they embark upon creating a blog, because blogging takes up too much time. He suggested that professional firms should pursue podcasting instead, because blogs are such a big commitment for producing intellectual capital and content.

As he made his remarks, one could almost feel the marketers in the audience heaving a sigh of relief. I heard one of them saying (it have been Dunay himself) that undertaking a blog is like diving into a black hole and never emerging.

While I think the black hole analogy is an overstatement, Dunay spoke the truth, and I always appreciate the truth. I admit it: blogging does require a carve-out of my time and a commitment to thoughtful articulation of my intellectual capital. I've actually scheduled my times to blog like appointments on a calendar.

But before professional services marketers sigh, "Thank goodness I don't have to explore anything further about blogging," hang on a moment! Yes, it's critical for professional service firms to allocate their marketing resources as smartly as possible. Yes, podcasting might be less of a time commitment for busy professionals. Yes, podcasting might be equal to blogging as a tool to build a firm's visibility.

But therein lies the conundrum.

Shouldn't professional firm marketers be eager for their firms' fee-earners to engage in market-focused activities that grow their intellectual capital? I remember the days when I was a professional service firm senior marketer, expected to undertake awareness-building activities when I knew, with painful clarity, that my firm's intellectual capital was at best dusty. Since I opened my own firm 10 years ago, I've seen it again and again with my clients: professional service firms that market their experience base (think podcasting here), while neglecting to build cutting-edge intellectual capital.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying podcasts (or Internet videos) are a terrible marketing idea. They’re not. Although I haven't yet, I intend to employ these channels in my own firm’s marketing program.

But the truth is that blogging – a regular, interactive exchange of knowledge and insight in a living, breathing medium -- requires a professional to stretch intellectually, and to think in context to the intellectual capital of his or her professional counterparts and to his or her own value proposition within the marketplace.

Intellectual capital cannot be a myth cloaked in smoke and mirrors, or dressed up on one-way podcasts or Internet videos. True intellectual capital must grow. True intellectual capital is a huge factor in the eventual success and marketplace survival of any professional service firm. (Of course, I am tempted to go off on a tangent about how important it is for a firm's leaders to reward their practitioners for developing new expertise, but that's for another post.)

Do podcasts push professional service firms to grow their expertise? Certainly not the way Dunay portrayed them, and this is what bothered me. But he is probably right: professional service firms and their marketers will be very tempted to take the easier route, and this is perhaps understandable, given the realities of time and tight resources.

But I predict it won't be long before clients can discern which firms and practitioners have really committed to creating and showcasing new intellectual capital. Podcasting and internet video, now such hot new distribution channels, could be in danger of becoming the next promotion vehicle that clients begin to call “clutter.”
I hope those professional firm marketers, so relieved that podcasts will be easier to implement, won’t forget this potential pitfall.

Ah, those darn clients. They always eventually figure out where the real value is.