Mulling over what's been written about the Blog Council, of which SAP is a founding member, I can't help but think that with the exception of a few well reasoned posts, there is an awful lot of knee jerk analysis.

Anybody know of a consulting company called Creative Good? Creative Good is a firm dedicated to helping companies improve the customer experience they deliver to their customers. One of the critical elements to Creative Good's success is "The Councils." The Councils are:

...a peer-learning network for executives who work on the customer experience.

Members come from any level of the organization:

• Senior Executive Councils
• Executive Councils
• Associate Councils

Hundreds of Council members worldwide are helping each other learn about customer experience in a vendor-free environment.

I am a member of the Councils as are a couple of hundred other executives from companies all over the world. Creative Good started with one council with about 15 companies and over the years has grown to I believe 12 councils now. In the council meetings, executives have a private, non-competitive environment to discuss issues, get feedback from peers and to learn. I will say again, that my membership has been one of the most valuable components to my career. The ability to share next practices, discuss problems has been invaluable to me. Not every conversation we have is a public conversation and not every topic is obviously meant for public consumption. Private forums are indeed necessary and I believe that the Blog Council will serve this purpose. And it will grow and morph to be inclusive of a larger, broader scope in relatively short order... at least that is my hope.

The Blog Council exists as a forum for executives to meet one another in a private, vendor-free environment and share tactics, offer advice based on past experience, and develop standards= based best practices as a model for other corporate blogs

I disagree with Scoble:

I'm pretty skeptical. Why? Cause I've done enough speaking to enough corporations now that if they don't get why they should be talking with their customers already I don't get how hanging out at yet another boring industry conference is going to help them to get it.

These companies clearly get it and they want to learn from one another how to have these conversations in the best manner possible.