I just got back from another trip to the Paris office and I wanted to catch up on some activities from last week.  One of which is a great directory of area VC firms that Tom Summit posted on the Buzz in theHub blog.  The post includes (as of this post) a list of 39 firms and angel investors with a link over to each firms profile on Genotrope.  This will show you a visual mapping of the firms investments and track record.

For example, check out the profile for .406 Ventures (the first on the list) that shows their recent investments.

Genotrope is a great tool for both company research and recruiting by attempting to use a visual mapping technology to show a companies "heritage" through it’s management team, investors and other key information.  

This posts key question…do you like how I fit in the current buzzword of the day in the post title? 

Jupiter research has announced a study that corporate blogs 35 percent of large companies plan to institute corporate Weblogs this year. Combined with the existing deployed base of 34 percent, nearly 70 percent of all site operators will have implemented corporate blogs by the end of 2006.

What does this mean? We’ll C-Level executives have probably heard in a cocktail party or from the latest “marketing how-to” book that blogs are the way to go! Actually, my sarcastic tone aside, a blog is an excellent way to communicate with customers and even your internally audiences.

I’ve instated corporate blogs to help with search marketing results (works great) but I also stumbled upon how great they are as a way to communicate internally. I spend a lot of time keeping up on industry trends that I usually email around to the C-Level, Sales and Product teams. It’s a much easier task just to create an internal blog that your staff can subscribe to and search when they need it.

The big question with the spread of so many corporate blogs now is what they hell are you going to write about? We all know the concept of a corporate blog sounds great at the previously mentioned cocktail party but it’s a real commitment. Plus you have to set real guidelines for what you are going to cover - especially with the NDA crazy tech firms.

When setting up a coporate blog it’s important to set out the correct strategy and make sure everyone at the top is bought-in. You also need to set real content guidelines that fit with your overall communication strategy. There are agencies and technology companies looking to fill this need and help companies tackle this issue.

I was reading a decent blog on this subject by Cambridge based Hubspot (just announced seed funding). I can also forward you to other companies, post a comment and I will email you back.