LexisNexis(TM) Academic - Document
Copyright 2005 The Financial Times Limited
Financial Times (London, England)
July 15, 2005 Friday
London Edition 1
SECTION: BUSINESS LIFE; Pg. 12
LENGTH: 1379 words
HEADLINE: The rise of the corporate blogger GUIDE TO BLOGGING ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATION: Scott Morrison examines the benefits as well as the potential risks of workers holding forth about their employers in the blogosphere
BYLINE: By SCOTT MORRISON
BODY:
Bob Lutz, the vice chairman of General Motors, does it. So does Jonathan Schwartz, chief operating officer of computer maker Sun Microsystems. A handful of executives at Hewlett-Packard and Boeing are also getting in on the act.
Welcome to the blogosphere - home to those informal, frequently updated online journals that people create to share their thoughts and opinions. Web logs, or blogs, have for the most part remained the domain of millions of independent bloggers who want to talk politics, trade tech ideas, share their daily lives - or criticise corporations.
Now those same corporations are trying to figure out how they can take advantage of this new medium to attract attention, cultivate customer relationships, respond to criticism - and perhaps sell a few more computers, cars or aircraft along the way.
"The whole corporate blogging issue is beginning to bubble up," says Peter Hirshberg, vice-president of Technorati, a blogging search engine site. "It gives people in a company the opportunity to be people interacting with other people. Corporations are just big faceless entities right now."
For all the hype, the corporate blogosphere remains uncharted territory as executives, public relations staff and legal experts are just beginning to work out how they might harness the potential of web logs without putting themselves or their companies at risk.
Bloggers boldly predict that the web log phenomenon will usher in a new era in corporate communications. Today, most companies craft carefully con-trolled messages that are transmitted to the public via the mass media.
The advent of blogging is starting to make companies think about how they will be expected to engage their customers and employees in two-way conversations in real time - whether they like it or not.
A number of companies have already found out that they ignore the blogosphere at their peril. For example, Kryptonite, the US lock manufacturer, saw sales tumble last year when a blogger posted a video showing how to pick one of the company's bike locks.
No one is sure how blogging will change the corporate communications business, but there is a view that companies should get involved - and now.
One way for a company to enter the blogosphere is to establish a system on the corporate intranet, where weblogs can be used as an internal communications tool. IBM, for example, says thousands of its employees blog on the company's internal network, where they trade idle gossip and discuss corporate business strategy.
According to Philippe Borremans, an IBM public relations manager based in Brussels, some blogs are also used to highlight interesting articles, websites or syndication feeds that could be of interest to employees. Others are treated like project management tools to help workers share information.
"It's an easier first step for a company to take," says Mr Hirshberg. "There is no lack of internal information that is not being shared effectively and there are certainly fewer legal ramifications than with external blogs."
Much more visible are web logs targeting customers and the general public, such as GM's FastLane and Boeing's blog written by Randy Baseler, the group's vice-president for commercial aircraft marketing. But most high-
profile executives are too busy and too constrained to speak candidly.
There are a few key rules that a successful corporate blogger must follow: they must write in a chatty informal tone, tell the truth, update their blogs on a regular basis and be willing to accept any criticism that readers dish out. The blogosphere is regarded as a source of unpredictable and often irreverent commentary and any dry, dull blog that smacks of corporate PR and legalese will quickly draw criticism from readers. Mr Baseler found that out when he sidestepped the sex scandal that forced Harry Stonecipher to step down as chief executive.
Corporate bloggers cannot afford to be wrong or - worse - tell a lie. Someone, somewhere out in cyberspace is going to discover the mistake or lie and shine a very bright spotlight on it. The swift reaction to an erroneous CBS news report during last year's US presidential campaign is seen as a warning to anyone tempted to ride roughshod over the reality.
Nor can corporate bloggers afford to get caught squashing dissenting opinions. David Gee, head of worldwide marketing for Hewlett-Packard's management software business, found this out the hard way when an unhappy customer posted a negative comment on his blog.
HP pulled the comment - and that was when the real trouble began. Irked by HP's reaction, the censored blogger moved quickly to tell as many people as possible about HP's reaction. Sensing a bad situation, Mr Gee quickly ordered the comment be reposted but not before comments likening HP to Big Brother had popped up on the internet. "I was surprised how quickly it spread across the blogosphere," he says. "It wasn't like I was out there promoting it, believe me."
Another problem with blogging is that it can pose legal risks which companies ignore at their peril. Howard Rice, a US law firm, cautions that careless bloggers could easily run foul of defamation laws, intellectual property statutes and securities regulations.
There do not yet appear to be any known legal cases based around blogging, but Stephen Fronk, a senior associate at Howard Rice,believes that it is only a matter of time. He says that while some companies post disclaimers on employee blogs, it remains unclear whether such a disclaimer would hold up in court if, for example, a blogger were to violate libel laws or securities regulations.
Mr Fronk says that some companies require bloggers to clear all material through the corporate legal department. The trouble is, this can be time-consuming and tends to reduce an author's comments to bland platitudes that annoy readers.
Increasingly common are company guidelines stipulating what can and cannot be posted on a corporate blog. These guidelines are particularly useful at technology companies such as Microsoft, Yahoo and Google, which have taken the lead in encouraging employees to launch their own blogs and to write pretty much whatever they choose - within certain limits.
Yahoo, for example, says that employees are not allowed to mention anything that has not been made public. Bloggers are also asked to notify the corporate PR department if they receive queries from journalists.
A further recommendation is for bloggers to contact members of the relevant Yahoo team before they launch into a critique of their work.
"Whether you are posting in praise or criticism of Yahoo, you are encouraged to develop a thoughtful argument that extends well beyond (insert) is 'cool' or (insert) 'sucks'," say the guidelines.
Given the potential damage that a disgruntled or careless employee could cause, why would a company allow its workers to spout off in cyberspace? With so much downside, what is the upside?
The answer is this: blogging is transforming the way companies communicate and, for a customer, direct contact with an employee is so much more preferable than dealing with a huge faceless corporate behemoth. Robert Scoble, a Microsoft marketing executive specifically hired to blog about the company, has emerged as one of the blogosphere's most popular citizens because he pulls no punches when it comes to his employer.
He argues that Microsoft's tolerance of employee blogs - some of which are quite critical of the company - has helped shift perceptions of the software giant from strongly negative to surprisingly positive.
And if blogging can help Microsoft soften its image, imagine what it could do for any other company.
If you are thinking about launching a corporate blog, remember that the blogosphere is still largely uncharted territory for companies. By way of preparation:
*Figure out what you want to achieve with blogs. Internal blogs serve a different purpose than public ones.
*Learn the rules. Blogging is a new form of two-way communication characterised by an informal tone, timely updates and frank discussion.
*Make sure to devote the time and/or resources to keep the blog up-to-date.
*Study the legal ramifications of launching a blog and establish guidelines so that executives and employees understand what material is off limits.
LOAD-DATE: July 14, 2005
Financial Times (London, England)
July 15, 2005 Friday
London Edition 1
SECTION: BUSINESS LIFE; Pg. 12
LENGTH: 1379 words
HEADLINE: The rise of the corporate blogger GUIDE TO BLOGGING ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATION: Scott Morrison examines the benefits as well as the potential risks of workers holding forth about their employers in the blogosphere
BYLINE: By SCOTT MORRISON
BODY:
Bob Lutz, the vice chairman of General Motors, does it. So does Jonathan Schwartz, chief operating officer of computer maker Sun Microsystems. A handful of executives at Hewlett-Packard and Boeing are also getting in on the act.
Welcome to the blogosphere - home to those informal, frequently updated online journals that people create to share their thoughts and opinions. Web logs, or blogs, have for the most part remained the domain of millions of independent bloggers who want to talk politics, trade tech ideas, share their daily lives - or criticise corporations.
Now those same corporations are trying to figure out how they can take advantage of this new medium to attract attention, cultivate customer relationships, respond to criticism - and perhaps sell a few more computers, cars or aircraft along the way.
"The whole corporate blogging issue is beginning to bubble up," says Peter Hirshberg, vice-president of Technorati, a blogging search engine site. "It gives people in a company the opportunity to be people interacting with other people. Corporations are just big faceless entities right now."
For all the hype, the corporate blogosphere remains uncharted territory as executives, public relations staff and legal experts are just beginning to work out how they might harness the potential of web logs without putting themselves or their companies at risk.
Bloggers boldly predict that the web log phenomenon will usher in a new era in corporate communications. Today, most companies craft carefully con-trolled messages that are transmitted to the public via the mass media.
The advent of blogging is starting to make companies think about how they will be expected to engage their customers and employees in two-way conversations in real time - whether they like it or not.
A number of companies have already found out that they ignore the blogosphere at their peril. For example, Kryptonite, the US lock manufacturer, saw sales tumble last year when a blogger posted a video showing how to pick one of the company's bike locks.
No one is sure how blogging will change the corporate communications business, but there is a view that companies should get involved - and now.
One way for a company to enter the blogosphere is to establish a system on the corporate intranet, where weblogs can be used as an internal communications tool. IBM, for example, says thousands of its employees blog on the company's internal network, where they trade idle gossip and discuss corporate business strategy.
According to Philippe Borremans, an IBM public relations manager based in Brussels, some blogs are also used to highlight interesting articles, websites or syndication feeds that could be of interest to employees. Others are treated like project management tools to help workers share information.
"It's an easier first step for a company to take," says Mr Hirshberg. "There is no lack of internal information that is not being shared effectively and there are certainly fewer legal ramifications than with external blogs."
Much more visible are web logs targeting customers and the general public, such as GM's FastLane and Boeing's blog written by Randy Baseler, the group's vice-president for commercial aircraft marketing. But most high-
profile executives are too busy and too constrained to speak candidly.
There are a few key rules that a successful corporate blogger must follow: they must write in a chatty informal tone, tell the truth, update their blogs on a regular basis and be willing to accept any criticism that readers dish out. The blogosphere is regarded as a source of unpredictable and often irreverent commentary and any dry, dull blog that smacks of corporate PR and legalese will quickly draw criticism from readers. Mr Baseler found that out when he sidestepped the sex scandal that forced Harry Stonecipher to step down as chief executive.
Corporate bloggers cannot afford to be wrong or - worse - tell a lie. Someone, somewhere out in cyberspace is going to discover the mistake or lie and shine a very bright spotlight on it. The swift reaction to an erroneous CBS news report during last year's US presidential campaign is seen as a warning to anyone tempted to ride roughshod over the reality.
Nor can corporate bloggers afford to get caught squashing dissenting opinions. David Gee, head of worldwide marketing for Hewlett-Packard's management software business, found this out the hard way when an unhappy customer posted a negative comment on his blog.
HP pulled the comment - and that was when the real trouble began. Irked by HP's reaction, the censored blogger moved quickly to tell as many people as possible about HP's reaction. Sensing a bad situation, Mr Gee quickly ordered the comment be reposted but not before comments likening HP to Big Brother had popped up on the internet. "I was surprised how quickly it spread across the blogosphere," he says. "It wasn't like I was out there promoting it, believe me."
Another problem with blogging is that it can pose legal risks which companies ignore at their peril. Howard Rice, a US law firm, cautions that careless bloggers could easily run foul of defamation laws, intellectual property statutes and securities regulations.
There do not yet appear to be any known legal cases based around blogging, but Stephen Fronk, a senior associate at Howard Rice,believes that it is only a matter of time. He says that while some companies post disclaimers on employee blogs, it remains unclear whether such a disclaimer would hold up in court if, for example, a blogger were to violate libel laws or securities regulations.
Mr Fronk says that some companies require bloggers to clear all material through the corporate legal department. The trouble is, this can be time-consuming and tends to reduce an author's comments to bland platitudes that annoy readers.
Increasingly common are company guidelines stipulating what can and cannot be posted on a corporate blog. These guidelines are particularly useful at technology companies such as Microsoft, Yahoo and Google, which have taken the lead in encouraging employees to launch their own blogs and to write pretty much whatever they choose - within certain limits.
Yahoo, for example, says that employees are not allowed to mention anything that has not been made public. Bloggers are also asked to notify the corporate PR department if they receive queries from journalists.
A further recommendation is for bloggers to contact members of the relevant Yahoo team before they launch into a critique of their work.
"Whether you are posting in praise or criticism of Yahoo, you are encouraged to develop a thoughtful argument that extends well beyond (insert) is 'cool' or (insert) 'sucks'," say the guidelines.
Given the potential damage that a disgruntled or careless employee could cause, why would a company allow its workers to spout off in cyberspace? With so much downside, what is the upside?
The answer is this: blogging is transforming the way companies communicate and, for a customer, direct contact with an employee is so much more preferable than dealing with a huge faceless corporate behemoth. Robert Scoble, a Microsoft marketing executive specifically hired to blog about the company, has emerged as one of the blogosphere's most popular citizens because he pulls no punches when it comes to his employer.
He argues that Microsoft's tolerance of employee blogs - some of which are quite critical of the company - has helped shift perceptions of the software giant from strongly negative to surprisingly positive.
And if blogging can help Microsoft soften its image, imagine what it could do for any other company.
If you are thinking about launching a corporate blog, remember that the blogosphere is still largely uncharted territory for companies. By way of preparation:
*Figure out what you want to achieve with blogs. Internal blogs serve a different purpose than public ones.
*Learn the rules. Blogging is a new form of two-way communication characterised by an informal tone, timely updates and frank discussion.
*Make sure to devote the time and/or resources to keep the blog up-to-date.
*Study the legal ramifications of launching a blog and establish guidelines so that executives and employees understand what material is off limits.
LOAD-DATE: July 14, 2005
posted by Eastlaw @ 3:45 AM
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