"To Blog or not to Blog" Part II
A few months ago I blogged about Blog policy in "Does your company support employee blogging" - for some reason that post struck a cord and was picked up quite a bit by others. As one of 3-4K Microsoft employee bloggers, I’m often asked about our blog policy and the road we’ve been on to transparency. How’d we get management support? How did we get employee interest? How would I do it if I was trying to repeat the success in other companies? This last question got me thinking, how would I implement a blog strategy in a company that didn’t have one in place already?
First off, let me say that individual blogs are GREAT and should be broadly supported for anyone who wants to go down that path - I’m an example and advocate for that as core to a blog policy/strategy. Frankly, I think not embracing employee blogging in today’s world would make you an unattractive employer for anyone entering the workforce from Gen Y.
Having said that, what I haven’t seen as widely spread is a formal commitment to group blogs. Individual blogs are often challenged by loss of interest by the blogger, change in role at a company, change of place of employment. These churn issues clearly create risk in continuity. There are plenty of group blog examples out there, but let me take this one level deeper. What I’d really LOVE to see is group blogs where the bloggers crossed functional roles in their companies - someone from product, from marketing, from support, from sales, from professional services… This is the type of blog I’d like to read as a user. Southwest Airlines does this where you see posts from a wide range of contributors in very different jobs at Southwest (Communications, Captains, Executives, flight attendants and mechanics). It makes for a much more interesting read and as a non-tech company, creates a much easier model for participation for employees. This approach mitigates the risks associated with churn, drives internal cross group communication and collaboration and better represents your customers end to end experience.
Of course, I still say it is critical to keep continuity in a few of your core bloggers on the site and allow their personalities to come through very clearly - this, after all, is part of what actually makes it a blog!
Am I the only one who loves this idea? What do you think?
Sean
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