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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."
I find that most corporate blogs are BS PR. Few companies want to actually let their employees share their thoughts with the general public.
Bradley Holt
Public corporate blogging is dangerous territory, as I found out the hard way.
Whilst being encouraged to record experiences, insights and lessons learnt when working with partners and their products, in a publicly available, searchable format, I found the moment you mention corporate names and *ANY* shortcomings, suddenly this "sharing knowledge" becomes "finding scapegoat".
I guess what's required is an explicit corporate IT policy, with clear, specific guidelines on what can and cannot be blogged, if at all. This policy then needs to be shared, and "promoted" - beginning with the departments that would use it the most - IT. Unless there's a clear directive that knowledge sharing is appreciated, not much would change in the Fortune 500 world
http://efil.blogspot.com/
I've always regarded them as nothing more than "friendlier press releases". Also, with only a few cosmetic changes, the usual "recent press releases" page bears a striking resemblence to "web logs"...
Please help metamoderate.
IBM's got a few blogs. They seem to be doing ok.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
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.
Why would you trust a testimonial when choosing hosting?
guess what's required is an explicit corporate IT policy, with clear, specific guidelines on what can and cannot be blogged, if at all. This policy then needs to be shared, and "promoted" - beginning with the departments that would use it the most - IT.
Wouldn't it just be better for all if the Fortune 500 companies just didn't allow "blogging" at all? It would end the astroturfing, googlebombing, and also the need for endless regulations that would make the whole exercise a bigger waste of time than it already is.
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.
A slip of the foot you may soon recover, but a slip of the tongue you may never get over. -Benjamin Franklin
When you finally get to the "corporate blogs", they turn out to be PR pieces.
Nothing to see here, move along.
(It's striking how few blogs use a moderation system, like Slashdot's. Of course, Slashdot still doesn't let you moderate the stories.)
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
Another possibility is that you don't become one of the biggest companies in America by paying people to dick around with things like blogs. Slashdot and Fark were bad enough already.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
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.
Saving the World: One Drink at a Time
The people doing the corporate blogging should not be the upper management or PR folks. Their views represent 1% of the company and are always positive. It should be the regular joe in the trenches with a day-to-day grind doing the speaking. Only then would people actually take the message seriously.