The opposite of a good story is not a bad story. It’s no story. (A bad story is just a good story poorly told.)

And that is the fundamental problem with most corporate blogs.

Hey Team,

I spent a lot of time throughout the last few months trying to decide on the best way to approach this non-traditional employment contest and more importantly, whether or not it was even a good idea…

What finally sent me over the edge was the epiphany I had while perusing a few corporate blogs. Terrible, terrible corporate blogs. The seas of the internet are littered with the detritus of these listing ships. (How’s that for boat talk?)

I blame “social media gurus.”

For the last year and a half these guys (and ladies) have been popping up everywhere, spreading the gospel of company blogs, twitter accounts and facebook fan pages. It’s so easy to sit in front of a computer and read about squeezing every last drop of attention out of social media that I think people have started to lose track of what’s really important. Now everyone is using these tools and instead of creating an impact all most people are doing is adding to the clutter.

All ANY social media site gives you is a stage to shout from in frustration at rows and rows of empty seats. (Albeit a very large stage…with cheap rent. And fancy footlights. And heavy foot traffic out front, so sometimes people wander in just to see what’s going on. And every once in awhile one of those people that wanders in actually clicks with what you’re saying but they know full well that none of their friends would be into it so they don’t tell anyone else and now you’re just shouting at a couple of scattered people who are so embarrassed to admit that they’re interested in what you have to say that they wont even sit anywhere near each other in the theater or even make eye-contact in the lobby. This metaphor has gone too far…) The point is, you can scream about coupon codes and technical jargon until you’re blue in the face but that doesn’t mean anyone is listening. This is where I can help.

Sometimes companies just don’t have anything to say. It’s not always for lack of desire or for lack of stories to tell (There are always stories to tell…I still tell entirely too many tales about working at In-N-Out Burger.), sometimes it’s just about having the time or the ability to look at their own company from the outside. Things that you see everyday and have taken for granted may be incredibly interesting to the rest of the world but without the right perspective it just looks like an average Monday.

So, here I am. Ready to offer up a pre-built story with a pre-built buzz handled by an experienced storyteller, and I can’t wait to see whose stories I will be telling!

What do you think?

I’m done.

Brett.