A Tool widely used by the corporations world over to communicate internally to its employees and in the bargain employees getting a fair chance to express themselves, I was a bit disappointed to note that none of you had made even a single posting on the blog!!! Just a few dummy comments by IT Department. This way we may lose one of the most effective tools of expression by sheer neglect. I understand that for some of you, a blog is completely extra terrestrial subject or new IT Funda.

Let me share a secret with you - three years ago even I knew nothing about blogs, I had never used the internet for anything more than email, surfing and chatting to friends and I could barely do any of that. One (lay I discovered a blog and after surfing from one to another (blogs tend to link up to other blogs a lot) for a few hours I was hooked.

Blogging has been around for a while. The term Blog came from a contraction of Web Log, which is quite simply a daily diary of events on a web site. The practice of authoring a blog, maintaining a blog or adding an article to an existing blog is called blogging. The individual articles on a blog are called blog posts, posts or entries and a person who posts these entries is called a blogger.

Initially, the Blog started of as a "personal diary". A daily pulpit. A collaborative space. A political soapbox. A breaking - news outlet. A collection of links. Your own private thoughts. Memos to the world. Today it has penetrated deep into the realms of the corporate world and successfully bore the mantle of "an official blog", and this official blog is what we have with us.

In simple terms, a blog is a web site, where you write stuff on an ongoing basis. New stuff shows up at the top, so your visitors can read what's new. Then they comment on it or link to it or email you. Your blog is whatever you want it to be. There are millions of them, in all shapes and sizes, and there are no real rules.

You can with a posting on current affairs news, share your views on the topic arid start the loop. The topic can he as varied the so called "sixth pay commission' to the "union budget" or "the share market","20 20 Cricket" and so on. It can also talk about any new suggestion in improving the workspace or a new technology or gizmo, that you just came across, which is worth sharing. The subject can he enriched with pictures and comment on day to day happenings enabling colleagues to keep in touch and stay up to date with what is happening, any personalities, events, thing you notice, new developments etc. They are not like a formal brochure or even a monthly newsletter. A blog should be in the style of a diary or column with a much more personal approach.

Contrary to a popular belief that blogging is a trend in most of the IT companies of the world, the world's top 10 blogs include subjects as varied as cultural curiosities and interesting technologies, making Money Blogging, internet marketing and blogging tips, Life hacker, tips and downloads, personal productivity, life hacks, and simple ways to make your life a little better, social networking and art project.

A famous story is about Microsoft's top blogger Robert Scoble, who created a tremendous amount of positive publicity for Microsoft through his blog ‘Scobleizer", which was not an official blog of the company. Irrespective of this fact, he soon rose to a "Rock star" status in the blogging community .Me soon became a star attraction at their conferences and attended blogger meetings as an expert. Microsoft realized his worth and used this to its advantage, in public speaking engagements and other events and reaped in millions of dollars of positive publicity. He is now no more with Microsoft, but his own brand had grown so powerful that he moved to a New York based company as a Managing Director. All thanks to a widely successful blog "Scobleizer".

So, what are you waiting for Just get started.