Peter, Great food for thought (especially given your insight from having worked at Forrester). I had an interesting conversation about this very topic with Augie Ray, the new analyst covering social at Forrester, recently. He said that at first, he was a little disappointed to have to give up his personal blog -- one that he had worked hard on building up over time. But after talking with senior management at Forrester, they agreed to give him a fair amount of leash with minimal editorial control [his post on the topic can be found here: http://bit.ly/ba9TWg]. He said that so far, they have been true to their word and that he thinks this can be a win/win for him and Forrester. To that end, while I mostly agree with your premise that it's important for businesses to at least consider letting employees -- especially for folks like yourself that have a strong personal brand -- maintain an external blog, there are places like Dell where chief blogger, Lionel Menchaca, has managed to balance his authenticity and credibility within a corporate culture. Either way, it will be interesting to see how this evolves.

David - well said (can't wait for Allhat Part Two: Electric Boogaloo btw). One other addition to your most excellent list is if you are a blogger, be sure to swing by the Blogger's Lounge. It's usually on the top floor of the convention center off the beaten path. Some of my best relationships have been fostered there. See ya in 4 weeks!

Greg - great prediction (and I'm not just saying this because you and I are now colleagues). BTW, I plan to steal your "Twitter isn't a business strategy unless your Biz Stone" quote and use it as my own. Hope you don't mind. k, bah-bye. Aaron | @aaronstrout

John - glad to see my post did at least a little bit of good. ;) Seriously though, I'm glad I caught this in my Google alerts this morning. It reminded me to come over and catch up on some of your older posts. One thing I love about you is how honest and prescriptive you are on your blog. For instance, I was impressed by how unimpressed you were with Gary while maintaining an ability to have a rationale conversation about his botched pitch letter. Keep on keepin' on! Best, Aaron | @aaronstrout

Rachel - great post. I'm particularly fond of number 4, "Be useful to people in your 'zone', they will return the favor in unexpected, serendipitous ways" as I've experienced numerous benefits from this approach. Best, Aaron

Matthew - I wanted to take a minute to thank you for your post. Yes, it does paint a favorable picture of Powered which will always make a CMO happy but more importantly, you really took a lot of time to get to know us. It's too rare these days that you get a 30-60 minute briefing with an analyst and based on that limited interaction, your company's entire life gets summed up. As you know (and if you don't, you do know) we're always open to constructive feedback so as someone that has taken the time to get to know us, please let us know if there are things that you see that we could be doing better. In the meantime, I'm in the process of reading deeper into your blog (adding it to my reader as we speak). Best, Aaron | @aaronstrout CMO, Powered Inc