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Have a nice summer!
The sun is shining here in Malmö, Sweden and it's time to cool down and even unplug for a while. I won't be writing here again -- or even read other blogs -- until sometimes in August. Subscribe, or stay subscribed, and you'll know when I'm back. I wish you all a great summer.
Blogging works: A personal success story
I want to tell you a blog success story -- a story about how I were able to start a project for client that never would have happened without blogging. We're not blogging in the project but that's not the point. The point is that blog networking works.
Remember the post where I and Neville wanted to find freelance writers? We received many answers and some of the writers -- Stuart, Drew and Tris -- have started working for the client. But it started before that.
A client of mine joined the European Science Foundation in France. He needed some of the things we had been working on together in the past and I got involved. Soon it became obvious that we would benefit from native English writers in our cooperation, preferably living in different countries. We needed an international network.
If you're in the PR industry you know what this usually means. You call the major, international PR firms. Well... not anymore. Not necessarily. I called Neville -- a fellow blogger. I hadn't met with him. But I knew him. And he knew me. We had been reading the other's blog, commented and discussed.
I actually knew Neville a lot better than I knew many of my co-workers at the communications agency where I was employed a couple of years ago.
To make a long story short, Neville got involved and we've now been working closely with the client over the past three months in helping him plan his long-term communication strategy and put it into action. We've built a strong relationship which we're developing further in the coming months.
Some writers are already involved on the specific assignment we advertised in our blogs. More writers will become involved.
The client is of course in full control. He knows what he's looking for and if someone doesn't deliver they're out. But that's the way it should be and always have been. Blogging doesn't change the basics of business relationships. They change the way relationships are formed.
Comparing to a traditional ad for writers or other consultants, or the global PR firm, I'm sure that we have been more successful. No big mistakes so far ;-)
There are some general conclusions in this, I believe.
- Blogs have made geography irrelevant in network building. It's not a blog unique trend, of course, but for me blogs are a much more qualified and profound tool than the virtual social networks that could have been another option for us.
- Company size has become much less important. I'm a self employed consulant in Sweden and I was able to help my client start a network that today includes people in the UK, Netherlands, France, Sweden and Canada. I couldn't have done it without this blog. There are certainly other ways to do it, but none so available to everyone.
- Blogs create revenue. You can make money because of blogging. And where direct blog revenue (i.e. ads) requires you to build heavy traffic, this indirect revenue is different. For the vast majority of bloggers that never will be able to compete with the big guys, conversations are more valuable than readership. I'd rather be read by 100 people who remember me than 100,000 that occasionally click my ads (if I had any).
Neville Hobson: The new trust changes everything
Multilingual blogging
How should corporations move from bilingual newsrooms to multilingual blogs? Blogworks asks the question and it is a relevant one. They expect companies that already have multilingual web publishing capability and experience to be pioneers in publishing multilingual blogs.
One question from me: Will it be more difficult to publish multilingual blogs than multilingual press releases? I think it will. Blogs -- at least good blogs -- are obviously more personal than a press release. And one major part of someone's personality is his or hers cultural context. Different languages doesn't have to mean different cultures, but it often does.
One solution is to have bloggers writing in many languages, of course -- but if that's not an option: Can you translate a blog? Can you localize it? What happens to the voice in that case?
Corporate blogging survey results published
The final white paper (pdf) with results from and discussion about Backbone Media's corporate blogging survey is now published.
Is corporate blogging worth the hype? they ask, and there are results indicating it is. The fact that 83 % have seen an increase in traffic to their websites from their blogs is one example. 59 % have been contacted by a journalist through their blogs. 18 %, though, say that their blog has generated negative PR.
From the executive summary:
We discovered that corporate blogs are giving established corporations and obscure brands the ability to connect with their audiences on a personal level, build trust, collect valuable feedback and foster strengthened relationships while and at the same time benefiting in ways that are tangible to the sales and marketing side of the business.
Just like in other aspects of life, success breeds success. What we see with successful blogs is a chain reaction that starts with a sincere interest on the part of the bloggers to provide their audience with great value in terms of useful and engaging content in the form of information, help, discussion and ideas.
Moblog from member of European Parliament
Christofer Fjellner, a Swedish Member of the European Parliament (MEP) is moblogging.
In an interview in the Swedish magazine Dagens Media he claims to be the first moblogging MEP. He "didn't want to be the last to start a blog", he says and decided to go for moblogging instead.
With the moblog he wants to tell the public what's going on in the Parliament and perhaps make us more interested. Someone needs to do something, says Fjellner, about media's lack of interest in the Parliament.
From what I've seen of his moblog so far, it looks promising. He uses his phone camera in the meetings and sessions (here's a few seconds of Blairs speech in the Parliament).
Investment banking intranet blogs
Socialtext via b-spirit: "Some companies, uncomfortable with the openness of public blogs, use them as an internal communications tool. Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein, the German investment bank, has set up about 120 internal blogs to promote discussion and distribute information, including some that encourage users to share ideas, requests and criticisms of in-house information technology systems. Traders use the medium to share information and research. 'We think of it as the open-source marketplace for ideas,' says JP Rangaswami, chief information officer. 'It lets us expose concepts or issues to a wide audience and discuss them dispassionately.'"
Let's not forget the small ones
With a lot of metablogging focus on the really big corporations, I sometimes need to remind myself about the great use of blogs in many small companies and organisation. Here are a few examples from my list of European corporate and organizational blogs.
Hotel del pintor in Mālaga, Spain has just started to blog. Many hotels could do what they apparently are going to do -- blog about interesting things going on in their town. It doesn't have to be more difficult than that.
In Denmark the Danish Epilepsy Association blogs. We find everything from practical tips and advice to announcements of conferences and personal stories. All organizations of this kind need to tell their story. A blog is one logical tool.
The Boutique Galerie KRD in Paris uses blog technology for a news function. No comments, trackback or links (so far) but the option of subscribing to a feed. This we'll see more of, I think. Small companies using blog publishing systems to add functionality and syndication to their sites.
The Swedish Travel Agency Svenska Lloyd Resebyrå wants to, among other things, deepen their understanding of their customers' wishes and the places they travel to. A blog is a good way to both generate and share knowledge.
And finally, I always recommend everyone to read the Tinbasher blog. You should too.
Writing press releases in the open
This is cool -- Ian Skerrett, Director of Marketing with the Eclipse Foundation, uses his blog to get feedback from the Eclipse community for press releases that'll be issued next Monday.
I can't see this approach being mass adopted by companies any time soon. But what a relief it would be.
Today's release writing processes where way to many managers usually are involved doesn't produce the best possible results. The main problem is not the number of views but the inability of the involved to understand the readers (that is, the journalists and the journalists' readers).
If we could kick two layers of managers out of the process and involve the journalists' readers... The result is kind of obvious, don't you think?
For the record: I'm not drunk. I know there are news that for different valid reasons must be kept secret until the official release. But check any large company's flow of releases and decide for yourself if that really includes all releases.
Hat tip to John.
Internal communication at a dead end
In a extensive survey, Nordisk Kommunikation has asked 12,000 employees in 24 Scandinavian companies about internal communications. Their answers paint a dark picture.
The survey points to three main problems.
- Top management is neither visible nor credible. Just 4 out of 10 think the top execs do what they say.
- Strategic communication doesn't succeed. Only 50 % of the employees say they know the goals and strategies of their company.
- 50 % feel that they are not enough informed about changes in the company.
I'd hate to look like a blind blog evangelist, but I can't help relating the first point above to Jonathan Schwartz's presentation at the Supernova conference:
If you want to be a leader, I can't see surviving without a blog.He focuses too much on this one tool, but he's right on a general level. A leader will have to find ways to communicate directly with employees (and customers).
They can't be visible in the sense that they run around every office or factory each day. They must find other ways. Blogs, podcasts, network tools -- you name it. We're moving fast into a situation where "visibility" and "credibility" is possible for the leader that wants to be visible and is a good enough leader to be credible.
The second and third points require an even more profound shift. It's not about employees "understanding" goals and strategies. That's His Masters Voice talking. Employees must participate in creating the goals and strategies.
My conclusion of this survey is simple: The result is not good, but it's the best we can do with today's internal communication structures. To improve, companies must find methods of participatory communication.
Links
Nordisk kommunikation (Swedish/Danish only)
Survey press release (Swedish)
Podcasting on the phone
Finally someone that understands audio as a communication tool: "Everyone I've ever talked to thinks podcasts should be shorter, except the creators" says Evan Williams.
He also thinks that podcasts should be delivered to a phone, not a mp3 player. This I did already 3 years ago for a client as a part of their internal communications. I can assure you that it's harder than you might think to get listeners. To pick up the phone, to call the number where we had published the mp3 file... We rarely reached more than 50 % of the workforce, even if the programmes only were 4-5 minutes long.
Still, I think it's a very good idea and I keep recommending it to clients. It's all about how important the content is to the target audience. We never succeeded with the kind of "nice to know"-information that are so common on intranet front pages. The times we really got listeners, we had "absolutely need to know"-information.
Folksonomies paper: Power to the people
At a conference later this week, Emanuele Quintarelli will present the paper Folksonomies: power to the people. It's seems to be a good overview of folksonomies, including their benefits as well as limitations. One small part deals exclusively with enterprise folksonomies.
This is a perfect read at the beach this summer.
Paper TOC:
- Introduction
- Overview of classification schemes
- New information sources and mass amateurization of Web publishing
- Limits of taxonomies
- Folksonomies: an emerging approach to distributed classification
- Folksonomies at work
- Broad and narrow folksonomies
- Properties of folksonomies
- Enterprise folksonomies
- Side benefits of folksonomies
- From trees to leaves: a comparison of taxonomies, facets and folksonomies
- Conclusions Acknowledgments
- Bibliography
- Further readings
Blog overload -- and a solution?
I sometimes feel this too. David Weinberger:
...we're now well past the point where we can keep up with all the blogs worth reading from the people worth keeping up with.More than anything else, this is a major challenge for anyone involved in the news aggregator/RSS-reader business. A simple tree structure of folders isn't enough. You need to help us more.
I just can't do it any more.
I've been faking it for a while. Months. Maybe a year. If we've met and I look confused about something you told me, and if you said, 'I blogged it,' as if that should be explanation enough, I've made some excuse as if I read every one of your posts except that one.
The truth is, I probably haven't read your blog in weeks. Months maybe.
And I don't expect you to have read mine. [via]
Here's one idea. Let me prioritize the feeds I subscribe too.
- The very few I want to read everything from you will present to me in full-text at the top of a web page (and you'll let me decide how many items from each feed).
- Level 2 are shown below them with the start of the text.
- Level 3 are at the bottom of the page, headlines only.
- Level 4 I want to find in a sidebar, that's where I'll put the more than 75 % I only want to keep an occasional eye on.
- Level 5 -- in my case search subscriptions -- you'll publish for me at a sub-page, and on the main page it'll be fine if you just tell me how many new posts there are on the sub-page.
- Level 6, or rather content type 6, is an area where I'll put all my new subscriptions for a while, to be able to decide how they should be prioritized. One more sidebar, perhaps?
I want to be editor-in-chief of my RSS experience!
Corporate use of RSS
Diva Marketing has an interesting list of companies using RSS for other things than blogs. Is RSS the next killer app, Diva Marketing asks? It's the next standard app, I would say.
Coca-Cola: "Remove the link to us"
Maybe I shouldn't be surprised, but I am. Big companies should have learned by now. But Coca-Cola stepped in it -- big time -- when they asked the owner of a fan site to remove the link to them. "If you are to be allowed to link to a coca cola website (cocacola.dk) you have to send in a written application to us."
Apparently they now have apologized, but something tells me that Coca-Cola Denmark won't be blogging for a while...
Åsk at ad-rag.com has the full story.
BTW: Here are the links to Coca-Cola and Coca-Cola in Denmark. While you're clicking these obviously threatening links, take a look at Top Ten Reasons Coca Cola Sucks too.
"The cult of officialdom has reached its limits"
Amy Gahran will start a Citizen Journalism Project called I, Reporter. It sounds both interesting and important, Amy. Good luck. And thank you for the sentence I use as headline here: "The cult of officialdom has reached its limits".
Maybe it's just me, but I think that one sentence says it all. All about citizen journalism and personal blogging, of course, but also about corporate communication and blogging. There are so many perspectives, opinions, ideas and voices out there that the official message -- even if it's correct and credible -- just isn't enough. We want more as citizens, employees, customers.
The cult of officialdom has reached its limits. One or two of my clients will hear that one...
Linkblog, the safe way of blogging
I like Steve's idea of linkblogging as a way of trying blogging, without actually blogging.
You can do it real easy, without any blog service, blog software or technical support.
1. Register for a del.icio.us account.
2. Create a specific tag for the links you want in your "linkblog".
3. Grab the RSS feed at the bottom of your del.icio.us page for that tag.
4. Create a JavaScript of that feed. Feed2JS is a good service.
5. Paste the JavaScript to your web site/web templates.
Now you've got a linkblog integrated in your corporate site. It won't be long before you want to add value yourself, and then it's time to start blogging for real. If that never happens you'll know blogging isn't for you.
(If you have very heavy traffic I wouldn't recommend JavaScript. But then on the other hand you probably have a programmer on your staff that you can get support from.)
Authenticity and trust: You can't have one without the other
Jesper and Jon is is looking for input on the relation between authenticity and trust. They believe there's a strong relation between them:
We have ended up with a trust-authenticity duality; you can't have one without the other. On one hand authenticity leads to trust, as human beings, we dare trust a person who is authentic. On the other hand we need a certain level of trust to actually perceive a person as being authentic. The relation between the two is way more complex though!Do you have examples of what makes you perceive a blogger or a company as authentic? they ask. Well, I would like to throw "personality" in, and as a result of that a blogger's more or less unique voice.
Authenticity is, to me, a process and not a situation. As Jesper and Jon seem to think, it's something being built (or not) over time. There are many different ingredients in it. When we're talking about corporate blogging one important ingredient is transparency. I want to read things that I wouldn't have read in other channels of corporate communication. But within their duality this actually relates more to "trust", which still leaves the question of authenticity unanswered.
And that's where I turn to "personality" to find an explanation of authenticity. It's impossible to say what in a text that conveys personality. It will differ between bloggers -- and that's also the point.
I read bloggers that have an annoyingly big ego.
I read bloggers that are impressed by other's egos.
I read bloggers that asks more questions than they give answers.
I read bloggers that never doubts their own answers.
I read bloggers that tell me about their family and friends.
I read bloggers that I doubt have friends.
But they're all personalities to me. I know how they write. They might surprise me, they might even be unpredictable in what they say and think, but I'm sure it's them.
That's authenticity to me.
RSS makes internal blogs useful
Reflecting on my post about IBM's 3,600 internal blogs, Alex Barnett gives some insight into Microsoft's internal blogging. It seems as if it has been slow to take off, but "things have moved" in the last two years.
What makes the internal blogs really useful is RSS - it isn't like subscribing to an internal distribution email alias - the thoughts, links and comments become an archive of knowledge and conversations, captured in the blogs - filtered and distributed by the magic of RSS in a spam-free method. All potentially discoverable through search applications. Internal blogs can also an effective venting and ranting platform, pointing out the good and the bad of the internal workings of a business and the competition in a safe, behind-the-firewall, environment.Couldn't agree more.
Given their potential I'm quite sure internal blogs will soon become a default feature of the internal communication / KM landscape for businesses large and small.
Technorati tags: internal blogging, corporate blogging, intranet
3,600+ blogs: A glance into IBM's internal blogging
Through the central blog dashboard at the intranet W3, IBMers now can find more than 3,600 blogs written by their co-workers. As of June 13 there were 3,612 internal blogs with 30,429 posts. Internal blogging is still at a stage of testing and trying at IBM but the number of blogs is growing rapidly -- and they are appreciated, with everything from water cooler talk to discussions about IBM's business strategies.
Click for larger screenshot
The most common way to find internal blogs is the central blog dashboard, says Philippe Borremans, PR Manager for IBM in Belgium and Luxembourg. It's found on an area of the intranet that is dedicated to collaboration tools.
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| Philippe Borremans' internal blog. Click for larger screenshot. |
Catalyst for discussion
Michael Lowry (external personal blog) works for IBM in Sweden as a consultant and instructor for IBM software. He writes one or two posts per week minimum about whatever is going on in his workday, including product updates or product changes.
"Every once in a while it'll be a catalyst that'll start a discussion", says Michael. "I've received positive feedback saying 'I read your blog and find it useful, I've run into the same thing and it's great you write about it'."
Blog topics
IBM hasn't studied what topics people generally are writing about but Michael gives me an idea of the most common topics.
News or events that affect the businessSensitive? Think of yourself as a reporter protecting your source
"When IBM sold the personal computing division rumours were flying around before it actually happened and people were blogging about that, giving their opinions about what was going to happen and how it would affect IBM."
Metablogging
"It's a new technology of special interest to people who blog."
Administrative things
"The little changes going on in the company -- the water-cooler talk."
Product announcements
"Not necessarily of general interest but of interest to the specific community working with the product."
Hints and tips
"...for example about what bloggers have found interesting on the intranet."
Some of these could include potentially sensitive subjects. Philippe says (and Intel learned) "anything you write internally can go externally. It's a copy-paste world. But people know that we have to respect intellectual property, confidential information and all these things."
"I can usually find a way to write what I want to write without hurting anyone's feelings or revealing anything confidential. If I have to I'll think of myself like a newspaper reporter trying to protect a source. I can change the wording a little bit to make it more general but still convey what I'm trying to convey", Michael says.
Blogs on their way to become standard tools?
Internal blogging at IBM is just one of many internal communications tools, of course. Actually it's one of the less known tools, according to Philippe. The main internal channel is the intranet which more and more is moving towards a personalized portal. Employees also have a wide range of other social tools to use: chats, very active electronic forums etc.
"Blogging is from a communications point of view not considered a standard tool, although this will probably change. The Communications function is starting to look at how we can communicate official internal communication through blogs", says Philippe.
Technorati tags: internal blogging, corporate blogging, enterprise blogging, intranet, ibm
Writing the codes on blogs
The San Francisco Chronicle today features an article about companies trying to "figure out what's OK, what's not in online realm".
In a bid to avoid legal and organizational problems, many companies have issued blogging guidelines. In essence, they tell employees to use common sense and abide by established rules about not divulging company secrets or violating federal securities disclosure rules.I'm interviewed -- as a result of the blogging policies comparison I did -- and many of the interviewed companies are the ones that do have policies. But I don't think the conclusion of the article is "beware of blogs". On the contrary:
"The blog-and-lose-your-job (scare) is vastly exaggerated," Phipps of Sun said. "If someone is dumb enough about blabbing about company secrets, it doesn't matter what medium you give them. They'll still blab about company secrets.'I'm glad the writer Benjamin decided to quote me on the paragraph below. I think this is an important aspect of how blogs can/might/will change corporate PR culture:
With a blog, a single employee, no matter where in the corporate hierarchy, can become an important person for some audiences or groups of customers [...] That could cause some uncertainty with top execs and the PR department. New people become visible. But for a good company with committed employees, this will be positive.Am I right?
Technorati tags: business blogging, corporate blogging, blogging policies
Fewer subscribers with RSS ads?
In an interview, Feedburner's Dick Costolo claims that feeds with ads are not losing subscribers -- but don't count on it just yet.
Reboot7: Lessons from Wikipedia
More from Reboot7 -- Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia: There are now 22 languages in Wikipedia with more than 10,000 articles each. Everyone can write of course, that's the basic idea, but Wikipedia is actually pushed forward by a small committed community. 50% of all edits are done by just 0.7% of all users. The most active 2% of the users have done 73% of all edits.
In this there are lessons for people that "do all kinds of interesting things on the internet". In a community model, says Wales, "reputation is a natural outgrowth of human interactions. Users are powerful and must be respected."
Every user/reader/community member counts, I guess he's saying. Agree.
Technorati tags: reboot, reboot7
Reboot7: Technology with heart
Some great perspectives as Reboot7 continues. Dina Mehta is talking right now, and as a background to her topic "Social tools for research and collaboration" she told us about her experiences during the South East Asia earthquake and tsunami last year. Social tools she says, based on how for example blogs was used, will become a natural extension of rapid adaptation to chaotic conditions.
But it's not the technology as such. It's the real voices speaking in real time -- what she calls "Technology with heart".
Dina stresses, as Jason Calcanis of Weblogs, Inc. did earlier, blogging as a societal movement. A way of life, even.
Blogging is not just a publishing format, they say. Not merely a tool. Jason actually talked about blogging as a "belief". A belief in the truth.
I'm not sure how much of this is relevant to corporate blogging. I'm pretty sure that we never will be allowed to start corporate blogs if we approach it with this perspective. But I'm equally sure that we have to understand it. Truth, transparency, openness are inseparable.
Thinking of it, I am sure that this is relevant to corporate blogging too. Otherwise a blog is just a technical tool.
Technorati tags: reboot, reboot7
Reboot7: Scoble and Doc Searls
Reboot7 started little more than an hour ago. Doc Searls was the first speaker, talking about Reframing the Net and online publishing. One thing that made a lot of sense is this quote: "Online publishing may work better as an expense than a business. It's something we make money because of, not with."
For marketing blogs that is more or less obvious. Still, it's a realization necessary for top executives trying to understand corporate blogging.
Scoble talks right now and he's quite basic about blogging. One interesting part of his presentation was the quotes from Microsoft customers he just showed. I took note of some of them. This, I think, is something many companies would want their customers to say:
- "I love how you're using blogs to explain your descisions even if I don't agree with them."
- "The employee blogs are the most innovative thing out of MS in years."
- "I've connected with several people at Microsoft through their blogs and it has made a real differenece in the work I do."
- "Blogs tell me the truths I can't get from press releases."
Wifi is working, I've found electricity. May write some more from Copenhagen today.
Technorati tag: reboot, reboot7
Blogs as "thought leader content"
Revenue Roundtable put thought leader content into context, and one of the tools is obviously blogs. Take a look, there's a nice mindmap of the different sources.
We also find some some thought leadership content rules of thumb:
- It must be relevant to your target audience or their sphere of influence
- It needs to be timely and address the issues faced by your target audience
- It needs to demonstrate your value and tie into your value proposition
- It needs to give more value than the time it takes to process and digest it
Internal communication -- the real challenge of employee blogging
The more I think of it, the more obvious it becomes. The only long-term tool a company can use to "control" blogging employees is internal communication; the things we do to support a corporate culture where all employees understand what the company is doing, where it's going and why.
The post where I compared corporate blogging policies generated quite some interest. I've been contacted both by media and others, many with the same underlying question: Is policies the way to control blogging employees?
Even if I think it's a good idea to have a policy, I've answered that a policy is just a basic document. Employee blogging requires trust rather than control. We've never had total control of what a company communicates and blogging amplifies that.
But the questions, and the concerns, are both real and logical. Even those of us that don't believe in control, probably would agree that a healthy company has a clear business strategy and it's external communication - employee blogs included - should support that strategy.
So what do we do, then? We neither can nor should control employee blogs. Also our corporate blogs need to be based on one or a few persons, and their ideas and opinions.
The way I see it the only reasonable answer to the question is internal communication. Companies need to make employees so involved in and committed to the business strategy that they will be out there "living it". Not because they're told so, but because they want to. Because they understand and accept the strategy.
This is nothing strange or new. Most companies have been trying to do this for a long time. Bloggers don't change the purposes or methods of traditional internal communication (but maybe the tools). Bloggers are merely one more reason to do it well.
It is strange, though, that this perspective isn't discussed more. Could it be a result of the extrovert nature of bloggers, and therefore blogging? Or is it the same old story... External communication is visible. You compete with others. You may win prizes. It's the sexy side of the business. Internal communications is about organizational culture. It's difficult. There are very few quick wins.
Regardless of the reason, this is something I'm sure a lot of companies with many employee bloggers will learn. Internal communication is the tool to manage an organization that opens up to the world.
See you at Reboot
Tomorrow - and maybe Saturday - I'll be at Reboot7 in Copenhagen. The organizers has promised internet access, and if it works I might do some live blogging from the conference. Would enjoy to meet you if you're there.
Preliminary corporate blogging survey results
Backbone Media has released some preliminary results from their onging corporate blogging survey.
...it appears getting information or content out to an audience is very important, as is building a community. Surprisingly to me, 'thought leadership' though highly ranked was not the highest priority when a blogger was thinking of launching their blog.
One interesting difference in initial priority to actual results was 'increasing sales'. That priority had been more important than boosting search engine rankings and gaining more links than initial expectations, but results indicate that as a factor 'increasing sales' achieved less results than 'boosting search engine rankings', 'increasing links', and 'getting product feedback from customers'.They write that they have problems finding corporate bloggers willing to answer their questions. That means - among other things - that these results probably aren't very credible. Not yet. Hopefully more will answer and make coming results valuable to our understand of corporate blogging.
RSS on IBM's intranet
IBM is quicker to adapt to the new world of communications than many small start-ups, at least in terms of new media technologies and blogs. They have thousands of blogs on their intranet and they're encouraging all employees to blog externally. Now, IBM's CIO's office is testing out RSS for internal communications.
Philippe Borremans: "At this moment we have 3 feeds up and running on the IBM intranet. Currently the RSS feed generator identifies all the content for a given topic (Example: In the news) and selects only items targeted for all IBM employees."
It seems to be possible to teach an old dog a new trick. Encouraging.
Policies compared: Today's corporate blogging rules
On four points, all of the eight most well-known corporate blogging policies agree -- corporate bloggers are personally responsible and they should abide by existing rules, keep secrets and be nice. Those four principles are the core of today's corporate blogging rules.
I've compared and categorized the corporate blogging policies and guidelines of IBM, Yahoo! (pdf), Hill & Knowlton, Plaxo, Thomas Nelson, Feedster, Groove and Sun. They're all on my list of Corporate Blogging Policies, the post I update when I find new policies. You'll also find some more related links there.
Why a comparison? I figured it would be valuable for many other organizations to get an overview of these early policies. Maybe see the patterns. And it is interesting to find what all of them consider important -- and perhaps even more interesting are some of the more unusual pieces of advice/rules.
- The Core; all companies
- You're personally responsible
- Abide by existing rules
- Keep secrets
- Be nice - The Common; approximately half of them
- Add value
- Respect copyright
- Follow the law
- Cite and link
- Discuss with your manager
- You can write on company timeThe Core rules
- Our goal
- You may disagree with the boss
- Stop blogging if we say so
- Contact PR
You're personally responsible (8/8)
Even though these policies are talking about corporate blogging, they all aim for the part of it that's employee blogging as well. Actually employee blogging often is the primary discussion. As a result of that, it's logical that all policies stress the bloggers' personal responsibility.
Example, IBM: Blogs, wikis and other forms of online discourse are individual interactions, not corporate communications. IBMers are personally responsible for their posts.In line with this, 5 of 8 recommend (or demand that) bloggers include a disclaimer. 2 of 8 mention a disclaimer as an option. 1, Yahoo!, doesn't talk about a disclaimer at all.
Abide by existing rules (8/8)
All policies refer, more or less, to present corporate policies. They form a basis for the blogging rules. Yahoo! remind of a Proprietary Information Agreement and IBM of its Business Conduct Guidelines.
Example, Thomas Nelson: As a condition of your employment, you agreed to abide by the rules of the Thomas Nelson Company Handbook. This also applies to your blogging activities. We suggest you take time to review the section entitled, "Employee Responsibilities".Keep secrets (8/8)
Not much to say about this one. It's got to be there.
Example, Sun: ...it's perfectly OK to talk about your work and have a dialog with the community, but it's not OK to publish the recipe for one of our secret sauces.Be nice (8/8)
This we could call the "common sense"-rule: watch what you're saying, don't insult anyone, don't be obscene, don't attack people personally, avoid inflammatory subjects -- pretty obviuos but apparently something all these companies think is necessary.
Example, Plaxo: You may not post any material that is obscene, defamatory, profane, libelous, threatening, harassing, abusive, hateful or embarrassing to another person or any other person or entity. This includes, but is not limited to, comments regarding Plaxo, Plaxo employees, Plaxo's partners and Plaxo's competitors.The Common rules
Add value (5/8)
A category more from the guidelines than the policy parts. Bloggers are recommended to be relevant, to write about what they know.
Example, Hill & Knowlton: The best way to be interesting is to write about what you know. If you have a deep understanding of something, talk about the challenges and issues around it. Try not to rant about things you don't understand, as you're more likely to get embarrassed by a real expert.Follow the law (5/8)
There are examples of policies saying this in general, but legal aspects are primarily discussed from a financial perspective.
Example, Hill & Knowlton: There are many things that we cannot mention as a publicly-owned company. Talking about our revenue, future plans, or the WPP share price will get you and Hill & Knowlton in legal trouble, even if it is just your own personal view...Respect copyright (4/8)
There are actually two sub-categories of this. In some cases bloggers are reminded about copyright in general. In other cases the company specifically points out that also the company's own material is protected.
Example, Feedster: ...you will require permission to use company trademarks or reproduce company material on your site.Cite and link (3/8)
I'm surprised this one isn't more common considering how basic linking is for blogging. If we tell employees they should be interesting and not insult anyone -- which could be critized for being too obvious -- why not stress this important part of blogging more?
Example, IBM: Find out who else is blogging on the topic, and cite them.Discuss with your manager (3/8)
A piece of very practical advice. Bloggers should discuss with their managers if they in any way are uncertain about what they're going to write.
Example, Groove: Please consult your manager if you have questions about the appropriateness of publishing such concepts or developments related to the company's business on your site.The Unusual rules
You can write on company time (2/8)
Plaxo together with Thomas Nelson. And it's a good idea. A policy should, I think, make it clear if blogging is allowed on the job -- after all, we're talking about blogging about the job.
Example, Plaxo: You may participate in Plaxo-related public communications on company time. However, if doing so interferes with any of your work duties and/or responsibilities, Plaxo reserves the right to disallow such participation.I could add two more policies, IBM and Groove, that says "don't let blogging interfere with your work" even if they don't explicitly say bloggers can blog on company time.
Our goal (2/8)
This is interesting. Only two policies clearly states what the company expects from or wants to achieve with blogging. Some general remarks can be found in others, e.g. Hill & Knowlton, but not as straightforward as Thomas Nelson and IBM. To me as a communicator this is where all communication thinking must start.
Example, Thomas Nelson: Our goal is three-fold:You may disagree with the boss (1/8)To raise the visibility of our company, To make a contribution to our industry, and To give the public a look at what goes on within a real live publishing company.
This I would like to see in more corporate blogging policies! It's not half as obvious as many of the other things these policies tell the bloggers. But it could be one of the more important to make words like "openness" credible.
Example, Plaxo: You may not attack personally fellow employees, authors, customers, vendors, or shareholders. You may respectfully disagree with company actions, policies, or management.Stop blogging if we say so (1/8)
Maybe this goes without saying, but only one policy states that employees are to stop blogging about company matters if they're told so.
Example, Feedster: ...please be aware that the company may request that you temporarily confine your website or weblog commentary to topics unrelated to the company (or, in rare cases, that you temporarily suspend your website or weblog activity altogether) if it believes this is necessary or advisable to ensure compliance with securities regulations or other laws.Contact PR (1/8)
Many bloggers can testify to the fact that a good blog attracts media attention. What if that happens to an employee blog? Only Yahoo! discusses the situation.
Example, Yahoo! (pdf): If a member of the media contacts you about a Yahoo!-related blog posting or requests Yahoo! information of any kind, contact PR.
GlaxoSmithKline blogs about health to stimulate debate
GlaxoSmithKline, the pharmaceutical company headquartered in the UK, is blogging. More specifically it's GSK Laboratory in France (of course) that has started Avenir de la Santé.
I don't understand French at all, but judging from different translation services on the web it's a blog about the future of health. It's focused on debate and discussion, and they explain openly how comments are managed, for example.
At least two things are interesting in this.
First of all it's a blog supported by the top level of GSK Laboratory. Veronique Delvolvé, Director of Public Affairs, is coordinating the blog with the involvement of the chairman.
Second, this is one of the industries that has always been among the most careful and conservative in terms of market communications. But now they're blogging. In Europe. Amazing.
If any French speaking reader of this feel like telling the rest of us more about what they're actually writing -- please comment!
Via b-spirit, pointblog.
The MeWe Generation -- Crying out for authenticity
Swedish think-tank and research company Kairos Future releases their new book The MeWe Generation this month. It's "...a journey through new values and mental styles... a book about mobile and multiple young identities."
It's always sound to be sceptical against anyone trying to predict the future. But if they're right, blogging sure is one step - perhaps a tiny one, but still - towards what this generation both want and expect from marketers. In the preface (pdf) I read:
"What we see is an evolving world of individuals, with multi-faceted personalities, trying hard to maximise their opportunities. These individuals most value personal relationships and distrust everything and everyone they consider to be superficial. They are crying out for authenticity."Hat tip to Richard.
Listen to RSS feeds
The RSS Diary reports of Speakwire, a service that allows you to listen to (selected) feeds instead of reading them.
I haven't checked it out in detail, but the basic idea is great. Both Rob at the RSS Diary and Speakwire makes a strange comparison, though. They compare this to podcasting, which is a wholly different thing. Podcasts are orginally intended to be listened to. A service like Speakwire's should be a tool for people or situations where reading is not an option.
The market is presumably small, and web users with disabilities will hopefully have RSS functions in their existing assistive technologies. Maybe they already have? Nevertheless, a good niche idea.
Evangelists generate revenue
We know the power of Word of Mouth already, many os us, but this is a great example.
From WOMMA: "...only five customer evangelists were responsible for generating $200,000 in sales (35-40% of its total revenue) for one liquor store in Chicago. What's remarkable is that these evangelists were not hired by the store or enrolled in any special loyalty program. Instead, these evangelists educated and helped other customers simply because of their passionate love of wine."
Thanks DurnikBlog for the link. All I need to know about Word of Mouth Marketing I find there. If you have even the slightest understanding of Swedish you should read it.
Fired for NOT blogging...
No, it's not for real - but one day it might happen, suggests Peter Friedman of supportinsight.com.