Who says a corporate blog has to be bland and impersonal?

A group of Razorfish employees recently launched a blog known as Scatter/Gather, written for people who live in the somewhat esoteric world of content strategy — which is basically the process of “ideating, organizing, and cultivating” web content (video, links, tags, metadata, etc.).

When I first heard of Scatter/Gather, I must admit I wondered how interesting a blog about content strategy could be.  But then I started to explore the cool entries.  For instance, a post by Scatter/Gather co-editor Matt Geraghty offers a useful critique of LaLa.com, a musical downloading service.  And contributor Rob Stribley discusses the controversy around paid blog reviews.

Matt Geraghty and co-editor Bob Maynard spent time with me explaining why Scatter/Gather exists and how it works.  Some key points from the discussion:

• About 10 people contribute to Scatter/Gather, and the list is growing as more Razorfish employees learn about the blog.  At first, the Scatter/Gather team issued a call for contributors in the Northeast region of Razorfish, where they work.  But in Matt’s words, “Some people in the Razorfish West region we didn’t even know have asked to sign up.”

• The obvious benefit to having a team blog is that a group of people can contribute ideas without any single person becoming overwhelmed by the need to blog all the time.  But, one interesting benefit of the group blog is that it has a bonding effect among Razorfish employees.  According to Bob, “Scatter/Gather brings content strategists together.  As Razorfish gets bigger, sharing ideas becomes more difficult.” Scatter/Gather gives the company’s like-minded thinkers (who might not otherwise have the chance to work together) a forum for idea sharing.

• By design, Scatter/Gather is playful and fresh, with bright graphics, crisp writing, and snappy headlines.  A Microsposts section consists of brief links to provocative and useful ideas.  Says Bob, “We hope Scatter/Gather will expand the idea of what a corporate blog can do.  I think there needs to be a playful element to make Scatter/Gather interesting.  The last thing the world needs is a corproate blog that is read by five people.”

Other corporate agency blogs that don’t look very corporate include Three Minds by Organic; Signal vs. Noise by 37signals; and, from Razorfish, Headlight, FEED: The Digital Design Blog, and Amnesia Razorfish.

Let me know what you think of them.  And congratulations to the Scatter/Gather team.