Paul Rosenfeld, General Manager of Intuit’s QuickBooks Online, and his team had a great idea: why not start a blog to communicate with – and learn from – their 35,000 customers?
Paul is an informal kind of guy. A staff member suggested the blog one sunny Friday in Mountain View, CA. Paul said, “Why not.” When he came in on Monday, lo and behold, the staffer had created a QuickBooks Online blog using TypePad. It was customized with the green header of the QuickBooks Online product page but wasn’t an exact replica.
“Hey,” Paul said. “This is great. Let’s go with it!” Or something to that effect. The point, as he puts it, was to just start. (And by hosting the blog externally, he didn’t have to get on corporate IT’s lengthy action list.)
More Action / Less Talk
“Everyone (in big companies) thinks in terms of PowerPoint and big projects and lots of money. Our blog is an example of a lot of action and very little talking,” he said in an interview. “We’re very proud of it. It’s the first blog at Intuit.” (One other exists, for TurboTax, but it’s only open to registered users.)
Here’s a look at how Rosenfeld has developed the QuickBooks Online blog with the help of a handful of staffers, what they write about and lessons learned for other corporate managers harboring secret thoughts of blogging…