The Fortune 500's Blogging

zlite writes "There's a new wiki that's tracking which of the Fortune 500 have public blogs. So far it appears that less than 20 of them are doing so, and their average share performance badly lags the rest of the F500. Why? This post suggests one reason: it's so risky that companies tend do it only when their traditional corporate messaging isn't working."

Comments

Corporate Blogs

[mysqlrocks]

I find that most corporate blogs are BS PR. Few companies want to actually let their employees share their thoughts with the general public.

Re:Corporate Blogs

[twiddlingbits]

Blogging can also be a new way of communicating, outside the "normal" channels and/or to expand on the communication from those channels. The article takes an old fashioned view, and also tries to correlate two things that really cannot be show to correlate. Besides they use bad statistics, you need a sample size of at least 30 "blogging firms" to derive meaningful statistics.

I'll bet there are more than 20 firms that have internal only blogs, but there are not a lot that have external blogs. I don't think it is a case of not supporting the concept (any good exec knows communication is very important) but an exec who blogs has to be careful about what they say due to things like SEC and SOX rules. It's a double edged sword.

Where I work blogging IS a company culture and it is encouraged from the CEO down to the "peon".

risky buisness

[hostingreviews]

A quick look at Ford weblog reveals the chance for something scandalous reaching the masses is nearly inevitable. Why are they risking it? I see a lot of companies playing with new ideas, but this one reaches a new level of employee trust that is unwarrented. Whistleblowers dream.

I've seen some relevant reasons first hand...

[Servo]

A friend of mine was fired from a job because he posted negative commments in a public forum about the employer. He didn't identify himself by name, or that he was employed by the company at that time. He just said something along the lines complaining the way management hanadled customer issues and security (i.e., ignoring them) and the fact that the entire support staff was outsourced. Apparently they tracked him down and confirmed he was an employee and fired him. Which in the long run was probably best for him anyway, because he doesn't call me all the time stressing out from work.

At my current job, there are several outsourcing companies that work onsite for the customer I'm assigned to. I was hanging out late after work one day and one of the guys I'm friends with was taking an "ethics in business" test. The company he worked for had recently been aquired by one of the three letter telco's so all the aquired employees were having the drink their corporate koolaid. So I'm shoulder surfing looking at the test he's taking. The material was such a corporate CYA it wasn't even funny. It could be easily boiled down to "don't commit anything to paper so that its not a lie later." It went into such detail as to recommend "sensitive issues" not be submitted by internal email or memo's since those details could be obtained during a deposition. Instead, invite relevant parties to a meeting and discuss it verbally so there is no record. Yeah, that's real ethics in business for ya.

Blogs are great for everything but Press Releases

[Wallstreetfighter.co]

I go to the few blogs "sponsored " by corporations to get info for my trading site but none of them offer one bit of information that can't be found in the millions of press releases that come out every day. The only useful blogs are the "rogue" blogs of the employees of the companies. It takes a while to find them but when found they are a great insight into the company. Blogs tend to be off the cuff and interesting. Corporate blogs are forced to be boring and regulated. I use blogs mostly for entertainment but occassionally search out information that can only be found in blogs. It is just another form of communication but it is a form of communication that does not work well with corporate structure. No more no less

Huh?

[LiquidEdge]

If blogging is the last resort of a failing company, why are companies such as Oracle, Sprint, and Boeing doing it? Yes, it's regularly a press release in blog form, but that's a much more digestable format, imo. I'd rather get company news in plain talk over a quote that marketing told the CEO to sign off on as his.