Hugh Macleod just posted an excellent overview of blogging for business in preparation for a talk he gave to PR firm Edelman.

The piece is an excellent primer for anyone that’s trying to get their head around blogging and social media for business. The advice comes from someone who has first hand experience building what he calls “global microbrands” for Stormhoek wine and Saville Row tailor Thomas Mahon.

One of the key pieces of advice, in my view, that he offers is point 5:

The growth will come, I believe, not by yet more increased efficiencies, but by humanification.

It’s an interesting dichotomy - one that I’m just starting to grapple with. I’ve been involved with the successful Earth Hour campaign, and one of the key challenges was “humanifying” what is in essence a large organisation - through both email responses and a MySpace profile.

The dichotomy is: how do you humanify and grow a company, especially when you have limited resources? How do you grow the resources to support the (when successful, ever growing) responses you get from a successful product or campaign?