Bob McCarty Writes

This morning, I stumbled upon Wal-Mart’s new blog, Check Out, which went live seven days ago. After a quick look around, I decided, for several good reasons, that I’m ready to drop everything and go to work as a Wal-Mart blogger.

The first thing that sold me on the idea was the message contained in the Dec. 5 Welcome to Checkout post announcing the blog’s “live” status. The fact that an icon of the blogosphere was quoted in that post didn’t hurt either. That post’s author(s), the Check Out Team, described the blog this way:

This is a blog, simply, about a team of experts at Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club who have really cool jobs working with gadgets, games, sustainability and more. Even better, these jobs are centered around helping people save money and live better.

We’re excited.

Finally, in terms of blogging, we like the advice Robert Scoble gave back in 2003 when he wrote his version of a “Corporate Weblog Manifesto.”

As a wordsmith and recovering public relations practitioner, I appreciate the simplicity and to-the-pointedness of their message. Even greater, however, is my appreciation of the second thing that sold me on the idea — a simple mathematical equation:

Since going live SEVEN DAYS ago, the blog has published only EIGHT NEW POSTS. Furthermore, the blog lists and displays the photos of NINE WRITERS who make up the Check Out Team. Do the math! Every writer except one — who I assume is the boss and does nothing but assign and edit posts — is responsible for writing only ONE POST PER WEEK.

Since I began blogging in October 2006, I’ve published more than 1,100 posts — or an average of 2.6 posts per day! Granted, not all of them were feature-length posts, but many of them — at least one per day — came close.

With literally millions of ideas — in the form of people, products, etc. — waiting inside every Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club store, I think I could handle the “stress” of having to write ONE POST PER WEEK.

Where do I apply?

Be Sociable, Share!

•