I swapped some email with a Board Member of a company recently commenting to them that an internal blog would be a great way to engage the employee base and open up a true dialog with the employees.
The response I got was:
Thanks for the hint. And yes we have.
This is great...First time that this company's Sr. Execs thought to use a blog to converse with the employee base.
Well, I was invited to take a look at the blog... (never saw a blog platform like this btw, I think they hacked their forums for user-friendly comment posting but I don't think its a true blogging platform). Good content though. I was really pleased to see the company moving in this direction. So I had to ask.... I emailed a colleague familiar with this blog and asked, "who wrote this?" and they told me that "I am ghostwriting" but "we work on his messages together"
I responded back that I didn't think this was the best strategy, that blogs are conversations and if you are writing it for him, its you having the conversation not him. It'd be like me sending someone else to a party that I was invited to and told that person to pretend its me... would the other guests ever really get to talk to ME? Obviously not.
So... great first step on the internal blogs.. don't get me wrong, there are plenty of Execs at this company that are blogging internally.... but if you don't have the time to blog, don't do it... it won't come off as authentic and people will see thru it... I did after reading one post and I'm not the brightest bulb in the pack... If you're looking to engender credibility and transparency, then you have to write it yourself. If you're doing it because "blogs" are on your communication checklist, then stop. There are better ways to communicate internally than to have someone ghostwrite your blog.
Didn't this meme burn thru the blogosphere 2 years ago????
Ugh. Sorry, that's all I can say about this. You go girl.
Posted by: susan scrupski | January 12, 2009 at 05:48 PM
Yes it did. And it will not go away any time soon :-(
Posted by: Zoli Erdos | January 12, 2009 at 10:32 PM
Deeply embarrassing to see bad executive blogs -- I like Dave Kellogg's post on this: http://marklogic.blogspot.com/2008/12/corporate-blogging-go-real-or-go-home.html
Posted by: Timo Elliott | January 13, 2009 at 03:55 AM
@Timo... thanx for the link.
@Zoli...you are correct and that's a shame.
@susan yes mam!
Posted by: Steve Mann | January 13, 2009 at 02:10 PM
I absolutely agree with you. There is need of personal appearance in every conversation.
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