In October 2009, our Technical Writing class welcomed a guest speaker from the US Patent and Trademark Office. (See my blog entry detailing the visit.)
During the talk, our speaker Bob Oberleitner mentioned that the new director of the USPTO had begun communicating with employees within the organization through an inTRAnet. He offered this as an example of how technical communication within an organization has changed over the past few decades (the time that Bob has worked at the USPTO).
Bob followed up a few months later with an email to inform me that the director had begun a blog on the inTERnet.
Take a look at Director Kappos’ blog and see if you can figure out the purpose and audience of the director’s blog. Why do you think he began this blog on the intranet? Is this blog an act of persuasion? An act of communication and connection with the public? Or something else?
What can you say about the nature, topic, and tone of the comments on this blog? Who are these people who are reading and responding? What motivates them?