Intel From Behind the Curtain

Good Morning Silicon Valley writes "So now that we've reached this postmodern understanding that all official corporate communication is, if not a charade, part of a ritualized dance where meaning must be divined between the lines, where do you turn to hear an executive talk straight? Why, to his or her blog, of course. Even more candid than the still-rare public executive blog is one meant just for internal consumption, and that's what makes Intel President Paul Otellini's postings such interesting reading. The Mercury News snagged a copy of Otellini's 8-week-old blog and found it full of frank interaction with employees on strategic initiatives and the competition."

Comments

"Straight Talk"?

[InfallibleLies]

It reads like something customers are supposed to see, talking about "customer focus" and other such nonsense. He even mentions on the blog that he expected it to go public, so how exactly is this "Straight Talk From Executives"?

Re:"Straight Talk"?

[Tim C]

It reads like something customers are supposed to see, talking about "customer focus" and other such nonsense.

That's pretty common - we had a number of speeches and other internal communications where I work a year or two ago about how we had to become "more customer focussed", amongst other things. None of them were expected to be seen publicly; executives really do just talk and think that way.

Look at it this way - no executive or manager is going to tell their staff to care *less* about customers, are they?

Re:OK, all Intel employees raise their hands!

[cyberfunk2]

He cant really expect that it'd be kept private from the outside world can he ? Too many people can see it.

I mean that sort of setup is just begging for trouble.

It is still censored

[QMO]

My experience, from several industries, is that executive speeches (or blogs, or whatever) to employees, while different than those made for outside consumption, are not less carefully constructed to give a specific, not necessarily true, impression.

Moreover, especially with the ever-increasing threat of lawsuits, people are more and more careful what they put in writing in any context at all, and companies have learned that digital words are more dangerous than words on paper.

Now, if there were transcripts of a converstion between two executives that were good friends, and not rivals in any way, completely trusted each other, and were slightly drunk, they would be interesting transcripts.

Most interesting would be words written where the guy thought that NO ONE else would EVER see them.

In Soviet Russia...

[idlake]

So now that we've reached this postmodern understanding that all official corporate communication is, if not a charade, part of a ritualized dance where meaning must be divined between the lines,

In Soviet Russia, people reached that understanding decades ago for all official corporations. Obviously, they were far ahead of their time. Of course, the poor suckers didn't have much of a choice than to figure it out--their lives depended on it every day; for us, most of the time, the consequence of figuring out corporate messages just comes down to whether we buy Coke or Pepsi.

Seriously, this is no coincidence: modern political propaganda was invented during WWI in the US by people like Bernays. After WWI, the now out-of-work folks started writing books and selling their services to the private sector. Their "Torches of Freedom" campaign made smoking instantly acceptable for women (even though Bernays himself already believed that smoking was bad and forbade his daughter to smoke). Goebbels picked up Bernays's methods for the Nazis (from Bernay's published works), and I suspect the communist movement used it as well. After that, this has been pretty much the standard way for any large organization to communicate with rest of us--it is standard textbook stuff.

You think the employees get the truth?

[Tim C]

My company recently posted its third quarter earnings statement. Internally, the CEO was upbeat, singing the praises of the results, but with the by now mandatory "but we've still got a lot of work to do, don't get complacent" bit at the end.

The City got a rather different speech - verging on apologising for the poor results, it was very much lower-key.

Which is more accurate? Well, I'm no accountant or investor, but the results didn't look that great to me. The point is that just because something's said internally doesn't make it true, *especially* when it's communicated to the employees in general.

*Internal* blog, so why are we reading it?

[Junks Jerzey]

It bothers me that this blog was "snagged" and made public. The whole benefit of having an internal weblog is to be frank and keep communication open. This is so much better than occasional and cold company emails or memos. Kudos to Mr. Otellini for trying this. Except now all his frank communication has been snagged and made public, and I don't see much of a reason for other executives to follow his example, lest their own comments get posted on Slashdot.

Re:*Internal* blog, so why are we reading it?

[grasshoppa]

If a company's exec is so paranoid as to be frightened of his words going public, maybe there is something wrong with the company that it SHOULD be public.

That is not the case here, but I'm speaking directly to your statement.

Further, as the head of one biggest names in technology, you can't hope for anything you write down for mass consumtion NOT to be spread around. It's the nature of the beast. Surely intel exec, more than anyone else, would understand this.

This is just a cleverly craft bit of PR.

Re:OK, all Intel employees raise their hands!

[Anonymous Coward]

Paul's blog is on Intel's internal web site, not accessible from the outside - until some moron leaks it, of course. Paul recognized this would happen, so he's not quite as open as he might be otherwise, but the blog is a big hit within Intel and he is responding to employee questions. I do hope he continues it despite the leaks.

I do note that nowadays the blog is prefaced with the standard legal mumbo-jumbo about "forward-looking statements".

Re:Interesting

[mikael]

Personally, I'd prefer to see a company director admit that the true state of affairs, and propose action to remedy the situation, rather than remain in a state of denial, only to be forcibly evicted six months later.

Running Scared of Apple? Silly!

[Mr. No Skills]

It's kind of funny to see all the employee comments about wanting to make "cool" products like iPods and Macs. I don't think chips will ever be a "cool" part of the consumer creations except for Slashdot readers. Intel just doesn't control that part of products, and the manufacturers on that side are only interested in churning out ATX compatible motherboards at low cost. For someone to start making "cool" products based on Intel chips, Intel is going to have to find someone willing to do some original motherboard design. Or convince Apple to based some products on their chips.