As another social networking site for entrepreneurs came to my attention, I got to thinking again about the effect of new technology on the organisation and its impact. I blogged previously about why social entrepreneurs and social enterprises should blog (or, indeed, shouldn’t) and Hugh at Gaping Void has got me thinking about it again.

His post about Using Blogs to Boost the Bottom Line has some gems in it, and some great recommendations of other blogs to read (several members of the blogerati, including Seth Godin, Guy Kawasaki and Robert Scoble). A couple of points stood out for me:

"10. Blogs are a good way to make something happen indirectly….

11. Passion. Authority. Continuity. Without those three, you have nothing."

Both are absolutely spot on: already, some great connections (international, blog, sector) have been made as a result of this blog and hopefully will continue to do so. The latter says what I was trying to say in my post above, but much more succinctly. You could replace these three words with Energy. Credibility (or Knowledge). Commitment, but it all boils down to the same thing.

Hugh also makes some further points about the relationship between blogging and the bottom line (it’s not direct selling, it involves failure and experimentation, there’s no easy way to ‘sell’ it to your boss, and so on) which are well worth a read. All of which got me thinking about the relationship between blogging and the triple bottom line.

The same financial points apply as per Hugh’s post, but certainly the social mission can be furthered by easily, regularly communicating from inside an organisation, and providing a service and information of use to others. Raising the profile of your organisation, particularly when mission-driven, can have an effect in ways that are difficult to measure but no less real for that: for us, via those indirect connections, via recruitment, via credibility and so forth (welcome you new subscribers!).

As for environmental, well I guess it is greener to blog than send all these musings by post…but then much of it wouldn’t have been written without this technology being in place. And, as John Thackara reminds us over at Doors of Perception, "even virtual worlds have a carbon footprint". Apparently a Second Life avatar uses about as much energy as the average Brazilian (human)…..So if you don’t know what a Second Life avatar is, you’d better send a postcard and an SAE….

Finally, because they’re always worth including, here’s a Gaping Void cartoon of relevance to all you social entrepreneurs out there…. [click to expand]