Who am I?
This is something every blog must struggle with. What voice should the blog have? First-person (or the blogger variant--the royal first-person, where everything is about "we" and "us," though the blog is written by one person), or third-person?
Corporations frequently choose a corporate voice, making everything about the corporation. The voice of the blog is often the "voice" of the corporation (corporations are legal entities with rights, of course). But, this can be tough to read sometimes, and still manages to lose the personal flair of a first-person narrative.
So, when my Google Reader blog-feed listed AstraZeneca's recent post, "Connections for Cardiovascular Health," I was interested to see that they are gravitating toward a first-person voice. The side panel shows that the main contributor and "voice" is Earl Whipple, the blog editor and senior director in the AZ corporate communications group. The sidebar mentioned that others would contribute (the CEO had a post on March 23), but perusing the posts, it looks like Earl is the only contributor except for occasional guests.
I think first-person is the way to go, but only if you can actually convey a sense of the personality behind it--I suspect that AstraZeneca will not let loose the reigns, and we will not find out anything interesting about Earl. That's too bad, because personality is probably the largest reason people read blogs (except in my case, where if you spend any time reading my blog, knowing my intense love for all things sci-fi might actually turn you off--comments to the contrary appreciated!).
So how about it, Earl? Tell us about yourself. Maybe even give us some personal viewpoints that deviate from AZ's corporate perspective...
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