In the usual case, that "H" grafik to the left will signal that what you're reading is a clip from an article located in the Highbeam Research database. Ah, but as it so often happens here on CBO, this is not  the usual case. This time I want to talk a bit about Highbeam itself, and Chief Blogging Officer, and what these two entities have to do with each other, anyway. If anything. As I imagine many of you may have wondered from time to time.

But the first thing I want to say is that Highbeam did not put me up to writing this post. Nobody called me up or sent email saying, or by other means suggesting, "Chris, don't you think it's about time you plugged the holy hell outta the company that's paying you all this money we're paying you?" Adding perhaps for effect and to hammer the point home: "Chris? Eh?"

And that's related to the second and more important thing I want to say here, which is: since I started this blog, which is fully underwritten by Highbeam Research, no one from that company has ever told me what to write here. Or, more significantly, what not  to write. Not once.

...well, there was  one time, right back near the beginning, where it seemed that things might get a little dicey. And I thought, oh no, here we go! It never turned into anything, but it's amusing to recall. Do you mind? OK then, here's the story...

Looking back in the CBO archives, I see that my first official (i.e., non-beta-shakedown) post -- What's Going On Here? -- was posted on November 10 last year, two days before my birthday, as it happened, although that has nothing to do with the story and may be safely overlooked as being entirely irrelevant. Anyway, after I announced the existence of Chief Blogging Officer to an intimate secret list of my four or five thousand closest friends (you know who you are), several of my four or five actual  friends threw congratulatory links to CBO from their respective blogs. Two of these were my fellow Cluetrain Manifesto ["155 used & new from $1.34"] co-authors, David Weinberger and Doc Searls.

Now, much as I love Doc, this isn't about him, so just forget that part. No, it's about David, who has a certain snarky way with words. If you know the guy, you can read between the -- usually very funny -- lines. (He used to write for Woody Allen. True fact.) But if you don't know him, you could easily get the wrong idea. Which is what happened in the case at hand. On December 2nd, David wrote...

Would you make someone named RageBoy your Chief Blogging Officer? Look, fellas, you went into this with your eyes open. When the sick bastard turns on you, you'll have no one to blame but yourself.

Let's call that Graf #1. There was, immediately following, a Graf #2, which continued...

In short, congratulations! The blog is - rather brilliantly - not about HighBeam, the sponsor. It's about Chris burrowing into ideas he's interested in, incorporating information found via HighBeam. So, we get to watch over Chris' shoulder as he works on his next book, which has nothing to do with his sponsor. HighBeam shines the more brightly by being reflected through Chris' interests.

The insight reflected in Graf #2 derives in part from the fact that David is one of the 13 people who actually read Gonzo Marketing: Winning Through Worst Practices ["79 used & new from $0.47"], and thus saw (or, if you will, "got") the connection between what I wrote in that book and what I was doing here on Chief Blogging Officer. So, to needlessly over-explain, Graf #2 was the Content Graf. But not the Funny Graf.

Which do you suppose got picked up and propagated through the Blog-O-Sphere? Very good, Class! The correct answer is, of course, Graf #1.

And who picked up on David's funny line? It was Robert Scoble of Microsoft, whom the industry press was watching quite closely, as blogs had suddenly come on the corporate radar like a giant fleet of Chinese nuclear subs approaching San Francisco at top speed. Naturally, Robert just reposted Graf#1 and let the hyperlinks speak for themselves as to the provenance and let's call it "cultural spin" of the quote.

However, some harried journalist at InfoWorld picked up Robert's quoting of David's line as if it were Robert's own summary dismissal and dastardly damning opinion, not bothering to check the links to see What Was Really Going On. If you've been able to follow this twisted tale so far, you'll possibly understand why Highbeam got in touch pretty quick when they read the following -- context-free -- on InfoWorld...

Robert Scoble reacted in his blog to the appointment of Christopher Locke to Chief Blogging Officer of HighBeam Research.

Here is the post Scoble directed at HighBeam:

Would you make someone named RageBoy your Chief Blogging Officer? Look, fellas, you went into this with your eyes open. When the sick bastard turns on you, you'll have no one to blame but yourself.

It's sorta like the kids' game, Telegraph. It gets funnier as the original communication gets more bent out of shape. In this case, the words remained the same, but the context -- or more accurately, lack thereof -- twisted the intended semantics 180.

However, to Kathy Greenler, Highbeam's superb (no kidding) vp marketing, the way this appeared on InfoWorld was cause for understandable alarm. She sent me mail saying something like: I dunno how your RageBoy persona is gonna work with this. Words to that general effect, indicating concern, right at the outset, that this whole CBO thing could be a fiasco on the level of a giant fleet of Chinese nuclear subs actually arriving in San Francisco Bay.

So I got on the phone and told her the story I've just told you. "No, no, this is a good thing. Really. Trust me. That David. Funny guy. Yeah, used to write for Woody Allen..." Kathy sounded a little skeptical at first, but she did get that it was more important what Weinberger and Scoble were saying than what InfoWorld thought they were saying. Welcome to blogging. All part of the fun!

In fact, it was this incident that led me to adopt the image of this somewhat perplexed business individual as CBO's informal mascot and logo...

But to get back to some sort of point here, aside from that one time, neither Kathy nor CEO Patrick Spain has ever even suggested what I should write or not write here. For instance, Patrick has never called me up and said, "Chris, I think I'd like to see you go more in-depth on this whole Nazi North Pole thing." Nor has Kathy ever sent me email saying: "Hey, could you whip us up a little something on pig farming?" Never. Not once. Nor have there been any "suggestions" as to topics I've touched on that were maybe just a tad  too much -- and Lord knows, I've pushed that envelope till she was like to bust.

For that, I'd like to thank Highbeam Research. Sincerely.

And all of you who've been reading this stuff. You've recharged my batteries more than you'll ever know.

Moreover, nota bene, I'd like to not-so-humbly hint to all the suits out there in CorporateLand who are wondering how they're going to "leverage" blogging in "their operations" that they should be paying close attention to what's going on just beneath the radar here on CBO. Those aren't Chinese subs, you fools! They're potential customers. But if you create blogs that don't tell stories, aren't the least bit funny or irreverent, but only read like thinly disguised advertising copy, then those potential customers are going to treat you like Chinese subs -- and send Tomahawk missiles straight up your RSS.

I guess I should point out that none of this should be taken as a slur against the great Chinese people or their advanced technology. Just a random metaphor that probably came from waking up this afternoon to some weird NPR report. Something about Taiwan, I think. I turned it off.

Remember how I promised just a couple days ago: no more "long ones" for awhile? Obviously, I lied. However, the response to my last brief post was overwhelmingly positive, and so -- BY POPULAR DEMAND -- I'll be serializing the first couple chapters of Gonzo Marketing here real soon. And the foregoing has foregone because Highbeam's hands-off policy with respect to this blog is hugely relevant to what that book was all about. More relevant today than when I turned in the final manuscript to Perseus Publishing exactly four years ago. And so...