January 14, 2005
corporate blogs and whatnot
Nice thoughts from Evelyn Rodriguez:
I’m thinking we’re at a critical juncture with business blogs. Companies are now hearing so much about them — but will they launch and maintain the blogs with the ethos of the blogosphere or adopt blogs to the way corporate communications have always been done? This is the time to make sure that corporate blogs are as participatory, open-sourcey, transparent, human and conversational as we’d dream of them to be.
[I left this message in the comments:]
I wonder if we’re getting to the point, when listening to the corporations’ reservations about blogs and whatnot, our reply will soon just be, “Too bad”.
“I’m sorry if your calcified little fear culture doesn’t like blogs. Dinosaurs didn’t like meteors, either.“
Seems like a lot of people are waiting around for the corporations to “get it”. Does it matter if they get it or not? Does it matter if they go out of business? No. Whatever commodity they make, some other faceless giant will happily step in to fill the void.
[UPDATE:] Shel Israel is even more explicit: “Blog or Die”. Exactly.
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check out what wal-mart is doing…
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000103&sid=aS40y4zL4Bik&refer=us
i’d like to see the open up and have some of their peeps’ blog or talk in their own words.
or they can just spend millions on ads saying it’s all good.
Yep… that’s right folks. Solve a labor problem by taking out an ad! Genius! Why didn’t I think of that!!
I think that a corporate blog is a great thing, if the company “empowers” its blogger so much that he or she doesnt need to run to corp communications department to get approval for the posting.
Imagine the company screws up. The blogger sphere is full of negative comments and rantings. And the blogger has to wait for approval, and wait, and wait and wait. Good nite company, you are gone — credibility down, reputation argh.
As long as this basic rule — post as long as you want, and whatever you want, but try not to slam us too badly — is not provided to the blogger, corporate blogs wont work.
Fair point, Hugh. But equally, couldn’t the corporate’s response also be “Too bad”?
“Too bad. I’m sorry if your calcified little life doesn’t like capitalism.“
Does it matter if they get it or not? No. Because the vast majority of consumers are not like you or some of the others leading this debate.
Whatever commodity these companies make, some other faceless punter will happily step in to buy their tat. They really won’t care whether the company “gets” blogging or not.
Unfortunately, and this is a real bind for the reality and viability of the 21st Century corporation, the current legislative environment will discourage any such openness. In particular the SEC and Acts like Sarbanes Oxley in the US make it imperative that there is a lock down culture, so that the CEO can say that he or she had full control of the whole thing the whole time, and knew all that was going on. So, an unintentional exposure of product libility or other issues from a lower down source is totally unacceptable.
Now, this is a good time to discuss the future role of the corporation, and the American dilemma of business (Republican and powerful) versus lawyers (Democrat, oh, and powerful.) Now, I would certainly agree that this a sweeping characterisation, but it holds some truth. In the midddle of this kind of environment, the musings of an individual are to be feared and not encouraged.
So, this is where the earlier discussions about how marketing agencies need to help a client enact change, but in order to do this, they need to understand these kind of constraints to be credible at the highest level.
“Markets are conversations, but remember, hostile fuckhead lawyers are listening, and the internet provides your unshreddable audit trail for litiginous shareholders and customers.” This is a slightly different proposition, but alas, one that is the reality in many cases.
Niall– I think genie’s already too far out of the bottle to agree with your idea.
Hamish, yeah, good point. Watch the tension between the bloggers/Cluetrainers and the lawyers rise and rise. What fun!
The stuff we’re talking about here has a 10, 20, 30 years course to run… nobody’s talking about the whole house of cards coming crashing down by Christmas etc.
Thanks for the response, Hugh.
I think we do actually agree — it will be a gradual change that most corporates will only really wake up to once enough of their market decides it’s important. That may well take the sort of time you mention.
>Does it matter if they get it or not?
It did to Joe Gordon. Waterstones — a UK book retailer — just canned him over a blog:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0„1388249,00.html
Yeah, I saw that Waterstone’s story, Gordon.
Expect to see many more stories like it from now on.
Good post.
What Hugh and Niall said, up thread.
People talk … that’s what they do. If there’s news or issues that are less than pristine about a corporation’s prodcuts, services, employment practices, or whatever, broadly speaking two responses are possible. Acknowledge it and address it (used to be called “continuous improvement”, I believe) or deny it, hide it and spin.
Responding honestly and openly to such issues if raised by blogging can go a long way towards demonstrating a company’s philosophy and practices towards its engagement with customers and markets … and even short-term this will be noticed. Denying it, hiding it and spinning — keeping it inside the moat and behind the walls has been somewhat more the standard practice, and we all know how effective that’s been.
Yes, there may be a legal issue raised. Discussion in the company as to how to best go about being honest and open with customers and markets would probably go a long way to alleviating that possibility, so that some form of effective corporate policy (such as MS’s “Don’t Be Stupid”) can be implemented and refined as the feedback loops between customers, employees and the company’s other internal and response mechanisms begin to operate.
After all, not having blogs hasn’t exactly protected corporations from litigation when they’ve acted stupidly … it’s just made them more newsworthy when it does happen.
Hi Jon
I agree from a personal perspective about the “Don’t be Stupid.” rule, especially where a generally smart bunch of people like Microsoft are involved. However: some people, even nice well intentioned ones, just get caught at home to the fuck up fairy. Second, what may seem totally innocuous to you or I could soon seem like baby-strangling in front of a good lawyer, especially when taken out of context in the “Is this Really Good for Shareholder Value, Ladies and Gentlemen of the Jury?” lens.
who cares if ‘they’ ..whoever they are..get it or not !!
“I blog, therefore I am” — /pd
Its a matter of attitude .. if you get it– thats all that matters !!
The corporate blogging dilemna
Blog or Die…
This whole Blogging thing isn’t just for geeks. The world is changing, and companies and organizatio
Who cares? Read about it in the annual report. Warren Buffet is a better time than Shakespeare.
Finding your passionate voice
What are you passionate about? Write about it. There are plenty of boring impersonal business facades online — if you’re excited about what you do, it’ll show, and it will get results.