But in a good way.

On my recent whirlwind tour of Europe, I got the chance to meet Suw Charman, whose Chocolate and Vodka I had read with great amusement. She was obviously the sort of bright light we hope to attract to Corante, and so I used my mojo to get her to come aboard.

Thus was born Strange Attractor, where Suw will be looking the emerging business of blogging:

Suw Charman

[from Welcome to Strange Attractor]

Like instant messaging, blogging is gaining such a strong foothold amongst business users that by the time the management realises they have been infiltrated, they no longer have the power to switch it off. The corporate cat has to sit back and watch as the Trojan Mouse struts its stuff.

The thing about strange attractors is that they bring their own kind of beautiful order to chaos, but it is still chaos. You don't really see the strange attractor, you just see the chaos flowing around it and know where it is.

-- Joi Ito

In this blog, I want to understand the processes and functions that create these strange attractors, these swirly folded patterns. What makes for a successful blog? How do we counter high churn rates and rapid abandonment? And how do we implement blogs in business in a way that engages users and brings most benefits?

Over the coming months, I will be examining these questions as well as looking at some of the side issues, for example, what is the role of storytelling in business blogging? Are the best bloggers also the best storytellers? Or does content trump language?

A very high quality collection of complex questions for us to pursue.

Thanks for joining us, Suw.