A revolution in corporate communications is coming your way soon

Chris Anderson of The Long Tail calls it "radical transparency" in a nice write up on his blog. I've been calling it a "revolution" or a "radical transformation" in corporate communications. (Yes I write about this in The Corporate Blogging Book.)

The top-down, command-and-control approach to communicating a company's news and daily doings is giving way to something messier and more human. Namely, blogged bits and pieces, either from employees or from the CEO or other top execs, that tell a company's story much more effectively than any press release or official pronouncement ever could.

Chris has some great examples:

- Mark Cuban (owner of the Dallas Mavericks), who blogs his specific thoughts about Google's acquisition of YouTube and copyright issues

- Jason Knight, the CEO of Wesabe, is taking calls four hours a day from anyone who wants to call in and speak with him about Wesabe's online financial management platform (this sounds cool but I'm a bit confused; maybe I'll call him)

Update: Jason called *me* today out of the blue. He picked up this post through his RSS radar and decided to call and tell me more about his new company (which is getting fabulous mentions both in the blogosphere and MSM). Amazing, huh?!

A few examples I like to offer:

- Jonathan Schwartz blogging that he's "been waiting all afternoon" to tell us "I had lunch with Tony Blair today..."

- GM exec Brian Akre blogging about The New York Times' ban on 'rubbish' - i.e. the letter to the editor he could *not* get published in the Times in rebuttal to Tom Friedman's critical column (subscription required) about GM's gas credit. (Dozens of comments from readers support GM and are critical of The Times.)

[via Melcrum's new blog - soon to be public]

What should the CEO blog about... and why

Caution: this is a really long post. I prepared it originally for the iaoc blog where I'm hosting a discussion this week on CEO blogging. I may come back and add some stuff later. I know I haven't covered every wrinkle. But in the spirit of instant publishing... oh, and chapter 5 in my new book is titled "Should the CEO Blog?"

Talk about opening a can of worms with the first two questions I threw out (you'll see comments and the full discussion when you click through):

1. Is it OK to ghostwrite a CEO blog?

2. Should a ghostblogger for a CEO reveal him or herself?

Suffice it say that there does *not* appear to be agreement on these two questions. The writer/copywriter types over on the iaoc blog generally weigh in on the side of, "Of course it's OK to ghostblog; that's what executive speechwriters do." Those who are not writers, per se, but who work in a corporate environment (see comments here) disagree. If the CEO doesn't write it, they say, then it ain't a CEO blog.

I tend to agree with the later. But am willing to stake out a middle ground where the CEO gets editing help. How "heavy" that editing is gets stickier...

Question #3: What should the CEO blog about... or not?

Let's get the obvious out of the way. What can't CEOs and other senior execs blog about?

- proprietary company information (which could range from new products or strategies to competitive intelligence to unkind gossip about colleagues or employees)

- financial information (forward-looking statements, anything the SEC would frown on)

- anything he/she doesn't want to reveal

That said...

The topic/style of a CEO's blog seems to be driven by the CEO's personality, writing ability, size of the company and nature of the business. Some of the best CEO bloggers, so far, run privately-held companies. Their approach seems to be I'll write about whatever the hell I want to - it's my company and my brand dammit.

Private Company CEO Bloggers

GoDaddy founder/CEO and blogger Bob Parsons is deliberately provocative. He likes to circumvent the media by telling his side of things (about GoDaddy's rejected Superbowl ad, for example). Doesn't mind being politically incorrect (see my interview with Bob shortly after he blogged about the use of torture in U.S. interrogation techniques).

And is happy to tell us about the newest Go Daddy Girl ("sexy, hot and blazing fast"). Clever blog title as (well sex always sells, right?) it attracts readers and Danica Patrick is in fact an Indy car racer .

He also writes about business. A recent entry is a long and detailed explanation of why Go Daddy withdrew its IPO filing.

As to whether Bob actually writes all this stuff himself, I have no idea. He told me he did (that was over a year ago). But his blog postings seem to have slowed down a lot since then. Anyway, his blog is fun to read, well written and he often gets hundreds of comments in response.

So there's one side of the scale for a CEO blogger.

Also in this category is Alan Meckler, CEO of Jupitermedia and Mark Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks. Both good writers, they post frequently and provocatively.

Zane Safrit, CEO of Conference Calls Unlimited, and one of my favorite CEO bloggers, probably also fits in this category. Zane isn't outrageous but his postings are always thoughtful. He writes about a bunch of stuff that interests him from current events and health care policy to the challenges of running a small young company and things that make him laugh.

His blog has a new tagline which is spot on: Thoughts from running a small company in a rapidly changing industry.

Public Company CEO Bloggers

At the other end of the spectrum are public company CEO blogs. There are fewer of them. The worst is probably Whole Foods' John Mackey. His last blog entry, as of this writing, is dated June 26, 2006.

The best, hands down, is Sun Microsystem's Jonathan Schwartz (the first Fortune 500 CEO blogger). He's a terrific writer with a light touch and seems to have an uncanny knack for taking really techie stuff and turning it into something meaningful for us non-geeks. From a recent entry:

As I mentioned, Thumper (sorry, the x4500) is built atop a 2 socket Galaxy server, it leverages Solaris/ZFS (but doesn't require it - Thumper runs Microsoft SQL Server quite well, too), and has 24 terabytes of serial ATA disk inside. So it's part server, part application platform, and part storage product."

Huh?

But then he writes:

"Customers pay only one price, but in the pursuit of transparency, how should we categorize the revenue? - as server, storage or software product? It obviously contains all three. Going forward... The more we open up, the more you'll see we're built from common components and infrastructure - which complicates answering the question, "how much revenue do you generate from x, y, z."

More later but please dive in and add your two cents (or more) on what CEOs should blog about - or not - and why.

Quoted in The New York Times on CEO blogging

Cool to be quoted yesterday in Randall Stross's Digital Domain column in the Sunday New York Times Business section (July 30, 2006). Stross interviewed me at length for the article and mentioned The Corporate Blogging Book "which Portfolio Hardcover is to publish this week." He began by positing that CEOs tend to avoid high-risk activities like sky diving and rock climbing... and blogging. But why?

He goes on to cite Sun Microsystems Fortune 500 CEO blogger Jonathan Schwartz (the only F500 CEO blogging publicly). Schwartz's comments on his blog in the wake of Sun's most recent quarterly earnings announcement are a "tonic," writes Stross.

"Tonic" is a great descriptor, I think, for the effect of Schwartz's blog entry. What Jonathan writes isn't earth shaking but it's a spirit booster and we all know that does have an impact on our perceptions of a brand and, ultimately, on the market. Jonathan blogged (and prompted 57 comments from readers in return):

So I thought I'd add some color to our numbers, and put some of our competitor's comments into context..." - Jonathan's blog 7/25/06

Even more revealing - and appealing - is what Jonathan blogged late last night (well after the NYTimes article was published):

"I had lunch with Tony Blair today. (And yes, I have been waiting all afternoon to type that.)" - Jonathan Schwartz on his blog (7/30/06)

He sounds like an excited kid who isn't too cool to admit that being a F500 CEO gives you access to famous people and historic moments.

Randy manages to make me more controversial than I am by concluding his column with this quote:

Ms. Weil, the author, spoke with me last week about the reluctance of Fortune 500 executives to share their thoughts on a public blog, and could find no acceptable excuse for their silence.

“They should come down from the mountain and communicate in their own words — without handlers,” Ms. Weil said. “For what they’re paid, is that too much to ask?” - Randall Stross in The New York Times (7/30/06)

In fact, I said something to that effect. Then we crafted the quote together to make it sound good, er, edgy. I don't think that every CEO should necessarily blog. Not unless he/she has something interesting to say and is a reasonably good writer.

P.S. Randy took many of his points for the column from my chapter on CEO blogging in my new book, The Corporate Blogging Book.

Technorati: the corporate blogging book , ceo blogging , ceo bloggers , corporate blogging , debbie weil

Robert Scoble and Shel Israel at the podium at WOMBAT 2 in San Francisco

Live blogging this. I'll pull out a few nuggets from their keynote at Day 2 of WOMMA's WOMBAT 2 (Word of Mouth Basic Training).

Shel's up first.

Shel admits that he started writing Naked Conversations as a reporter -- as a topic to cover - but along the way he fell under the spell of blogging as a force for good.

Robert's loony idea to "blog the book," says Shel, was a touch of brilliance. The people in the blogosphere became the third co-author of the book, fact checking, disagreeing, adding new stories, etc.

What do my customers want? asks Shel rhetorically. You can't put that on a spreadsheet. But you can find out through a blog.

Now Scoble. 

He's a WOM (word-of-mouth) case study himself.  Eight days ago he told 15 people he was quitting his job at Microsoft to join a podcasting startup.

Within 12 hours he was getting calls from the Wall Street Journal and Reuters and AP for confirmation. The story has been written up in 130 newspapers.

He's rambling but whatever. His style on stage is no different than his style in his blog -- no pretensions, casual, upbeat. Actually I take that back. I think he might be a better writer. More cogent on his blog.

(Robert, that's not a criticism. You're always amazing.)

How do you start a corporate blog?

Says Robert, go first to the search engines and enter keywords you want to be found on. See what's there. Read those other blogs.

Then start blogging and you can link to the other blogs already talking about your topic. That demonstrates you're listening. Which is a key piece of being an effective blogger.

About his next gig...

Going to be VP of PodTech, a Silicon Valley startup. Was interviewed by John Furrier, who started the company. Thought he was a great guy (an awshucks type). Saw he had great connections. Just got venture funding.

Story leaked so fast he hasn't had time to sit down with John to talk about exactly what he'll do. Will include some videocasting.

"There's hunger for content for all of these devices."

The death of distance

One of Robert's favorite concepts. A kid from India called him up and interviewed him via the Internet to create an impromptu podcast.

Shel: his next book is about Global Neighborhoods.

The people with the greatest influence are those who are most generous to the community. He tells us about a 35-day trip to 11 countries he's taking -- leaving August 11th -- to see who has new ideas. (In the company of a Canadian venture capitalist - didn't catch his name.)

Pete Blackshaw asks...

Companies are stumbling a bit as they try to enter the blogosphere. How do you maintain that critical level of authenticity and credibility (if you're trying to market your products and services)?

See the WOMBAT blog (search on June 20 and June 21, 2006) for great coverage of the conference.

Technorati: womma womm word of mouth

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What REALLY happened behind Kryptonite's blogging fiasco and what it means for the rise of corporate blogs

Damn. I had the inside scoop two months ago about what REALLY happened last year when bike lockmaker Kryptonite had its fabled run-in with the blogosphere. I decided not to publish my "tell-all" interview with Kryptonite's PR manager, Donna Tocci, and instead save it for my book. Ouch. Bad timing.

Fellow blogging expert Dave Taylor interviewed Donna about a week ago and published the Q & A to his blog. Thus, er, "scooping" me. [Update: see comments below. Neither Dave nor I were the "first" to  debunk the blogosphere legend that Kryptonite was "clueless." I was being a bit tongue in cheek by using the term "scooped." Heck it's a blog. I gotta have some fun, right?]

The by-now apocryphal tale goes like this: bloggers revealed that one of Kryptonite's popular U-shaped bike locks could be picked with a bic pen.[Update: to be precise, it was first revealed on a bike forum. Update to update: the bic pen/lock connection was first revealed back in 1992 on a UK bike discussion list in a British bicycling magazine. [via] See links below in the comments.]

The story raced through the blogosphere. It was picked up by The New York Times and other big media.

Still, the lockmaker appeared to be oblivious.

The result, according to blogolore? By failing to listen and to respond to bloggers, Kryptonite's brand suffered permanent damage.

Turns out that's not really true, nor is it what really happened.

Donna Tocci knew about the buzz in the blogosphere from day #1. She made a conscious decision NOT to respond because she was too busy organizing the logistics of an international lock exchange. As well as granting interviews with the mainstream press.

Oh, and a minor detail. Not one single blogger contacted her to find out what she knew or didn't.

Kryptonite's side of the story, as revealed by Dave Taylor, is in today's CNN story: The rise and rise of corporate blogs.

What does it all mean? It's still early days in the corposphere. Most companies are just beginning to grapple with how to engage with bloggers vs. MSM. As well as how to handle employee blogging - and whether to allow it. Not to mention what the role of a CEO blogger is.

Be sure to check out the results of the QuickVote survey when you click through to the article. They're interesting. When I last checked, 58 percent of the respondents said their company did not allow employee blogs.

Useful Links

New PR & the Kryptonite Situation by Tom Biro
[Long thoughtful post on crisis communications, the new maxim "you don't own your brand" and more.]

Kryptonite Poster Child of the Blogosphere and Citizen Journalism Does Not Equal Wild West Blogging by Toby Bloomberg

Bloggers did not humble Kryptonite on BikeBiz.com
[See BikeBiz.com's archive of bic / lock articles, going back to September 2004.]

Technorati: kryptonite

Forbes bites back the blogosphere with "Attack of the Blogs" but overstates the case; where was Daniel Lyons' editor?

With this over-the-top teaser on the Nov. 14, 2005 cover of the magazine, They [My edit: A tiny number of blogs] destroy brands and wreck lives. Is there any way to fight back? the folks at Forbes have stirred up a whole lot of predictable blacklash from the blogosphere.

Yes, of course there are examples (upsetting, frightening ones) of blogs gone bad and of bad people (i.e. lowlifes) who blog. Nothing new here except the channel. Rumor and inuendo have erupted and swarmed and wreaked havoc on people's lives since time began. [See EFF parody.]

But the number of blogs and bloggers that fit into the ugly smear category is miniscule, as the story mentions ever so discretely, about half way through:

"Attack blogs are but a sliver of the rapidly expanding blogosphere. A hundred thousand new blogs are created every day, more than new blog per second, says Technorati..."

Having worked as a reporter and editor for MSM myself I'm surprised an astute editor didn't call out that fact to reporter Daniel Lyons and ask if perhaps the story weren't just a teensy-weensy bit lopsided.

At any rate, the article makes a perfectly valid point - namely, that the blogosphere is an unpredictable place where memes can pick up surprising momentum and quickly enhance OR damage anyone or any brand. (Fear of blogging is quite justified. I devote a whole chapter to it in The Corporate Blogging Book.)

Surprisingly - or not so surprisingly - a number of well-known bloggers are playing right into Forbes' hand by jumping on the story like "an online lynch mob" (All wrong! All Wrong!). When in fact the article uncovers (and I have to assume accurately describes) some pretty unnerving examples of blog smear.

Also covered is the notable fact that blog hosting services such as Google's Blogger and SixApart's TypePad are not liable for content they host because they're protected by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996. So it's frustratingly difficult to get back at or stop those who are smearing you.

See more balanced reactions to the Forbes' story by Jeremy Pepper, Stephen Baker and Dave Taylor.

Blogging blacklash already? CEO blogs vs. employee blogs, etc.

A recent meme that's got some smart folks arguing back and forth: is blogging ennui about to set in amongst the CEO crowd? Stephen Baker asks in BusinessWeek's Blogspotting.net. Chris Anderson (of Longtail fame) makes the point that employee blogs are bound to be more authentic than CEO blogs. Neville Hobson adds his two cents, noting that individuals are more credible than CEOs.

Interestingly, Stephen Baker was prompted to ask the question after reading my write-up about Intel CEO Paul Intellini's internal blog. I noted that Otellini blogs every week to ten days. Evidence, Baker says, that CEOs will soon weary of the time-intensive nature of blogging.

I put the question to Seth Godin in an interview for my book, asking "Are CEO or senior exec blogs a passing fad?"  His reponse:

"Is communication a passing fad? As long as they want to communicate they need a blog."

That said, Seth admitted that blogging boredom is bound to happen. With 80,000 new blogs every day a CEO's blog - or any blog - better be pretty darn good or we won't read it.

"No one can keep up, so we won't try. Instead, we'll find the really good ones, or the popular ones or the specific ones and stick with those."

My take on the question of corporate blogging backlash and CEO vs. employee blogs... Too soon to tell. In the inner circle of we-who-are-in-the-know it may seem as if we're due for a backlash or a bit of boredom. The reality, I suspect, is that most companies and CEOs are just waking up to blogs. They're asking three basic questions: 1) What are the risks? 2) What's in it for us - or for me, if it's the CEO herself? and 3) If our company and/or employees blog, how can we do it effectively and keep it going?

It's the last question that's the most pertinent right now. The "how" of corporate blogging. And while I agree that it's often easier for smaller companies to be nimbler and more creative, I wouldn't rule out the big dogs' use of blogs - or something akin to them - just  yet.


Useful link

New kids on the blog: CEOs (New Jersey Star Ledger)

Time Still the Top "Fear Factor" When It Comes to Corporate Blogging

In response to a WordBiz survey, 65% cite "the time it would take to write" as their most important concern about starting and maintaining a corporate blog. 51% worry what to write about. 27% wonder who in their company should write the blog.

Despite these legitimate concerns, 80% of the over 700 respondents say blogs are NOT just a fad; 55% say blogs will become a "must-have" corporate marketing tool. The survey was conducted in July and August 2005 through my newsletter, WordBiz Report.  [Download PDF of survey results.]

Wow. I was fascinated by these results.* They tell me that respondents are admitting to a healthy mixture of excitement and skepticism when it comes to corporate blogging. They see the advantages clearly: a way to give companies a human voice, to build community and to improve search engine rankings.

But they see that executing on the promise of blogging is more difficult than the immediate attraction of easy set-up and one-click publishing to the Web. Whether it's crafting appropriate corporate blogging guidelines or navigating potential legal pitfalls, it looks like there might be more to corporate blogging than we initially thought. At least, those of us captivated by the idea of corporate transparency and authenticity. (And yeah, count me among those.)

It's the underbelly of the corporate blogging phenomenon that I'm exploring (and trying to clearly explain) in my book. I'm not a naysayer. Far from it. But I'm trying to anticipate where this corporate blogging wave is going and where we'll be a year from now. Questions I'm asking: Who'll still be blogging (I hope GM's Bob Lutz doesn't run out of steam... ), what other innovative things will companies be doing with blogs and what results will they be seeing? Oh, and I'm burrowed in to write. I shouldn't be out here in the daylight to blog this.

* Interestingly, these results mirror almost exactly those from an October 2004 WordBiz survey on blogging: 71% said "the time it would take to maintain" was their biggest concern about blogging; 46% worried what to write about; 14% fretted over who would write the blog.

Useful Links

My press release on the survey results.

Includes stats on the "non-adoption" thus far of RSS newsreaders as a way to subscribe to blogs. And another interesting stat: 70% of the over 700 who responded are familiar with the term "podcast." The media blitz on podcasting appears to be successful.

As blogging grows, companies eye legal pitfalls (Reuters article)

"Cost in terms of man hours" seen as roadblock to corporate blogging (Backbone Blogging Survey)

Pew Internet Survey on Tech Term Awareness (Most Internet users don't know what an RSS feed is)

"Only one in 10 Weblog readers using RSS" (Nielsen/NetRatings August 2005 survey)

Read on to learn more about why - or why not - blogging will become a "must-have" corporate marketing tool...

Carole Matthews of Inc.com on Fear of Blogging

Was interviewed yesterday by Carole Matthews, senior editor of Inc.com. She's writing an article about "top blogging tips" (I'll post the URL when it's published) and asked me a bunch of questions. It was more than an interview really. We had a great conversation. We found ourselves musing over "fear of blogging" as a possible impediment to businesss blogs. We agreed that there are several components to the "fear":

1. Stagefright... fear of writing and being published
2. Fear of what other bloggers are saying about you or your company
3. Fear of negative comments that readers might leave on your blog

As for #3, I tell business types that getting any comments at all should be a greater concern. If you're lucky enough to get dozens of comments (as GM's Fastlane and Go Daddy's Bob Parsons do) then start worrying about negative comments. Hey, you can always delete them.

There's a bit of a self corrective mechanism at work when it comes to Comments: the commenters know (or should know) that they're leaving a permanent, public statement on your blog site. Most folks don't want to leave a public trail of vitriol on the Web.

Staring down fear of blogging at IABC blog panel

Had a blast yesterday moderating IABC's blog panel here in D.C.

It was wonderful to meet several corporate bloggers face to face that I've been emailing and speaking with by phone: Paul Rosenfeld, Intuit's blogging evangelist and the force behind the QuickBooks Online Edition blog; GM's Bill Betts representing the Fastlane blog (Bill is Web Services Manager for GM's global corporate communications office in Detroit); and Kevin Holland (VP in charge of the Air Conditioning Contractors of America's ACCABuzz blog).

Paul flew in from Calif. for less than 24 hours (as did Bill) in order to participate. A huge thanks from me and from a filled-to-capacity and attentive audience. I'm sorry we couldn't get to every one of your questions.

After offering a brief overview of corporate blogging, I posed some (vaguely) provocative questions and then let the three panelists do most of the talking. I framed our discussion around "fear of blogging" and asked each panelist in turn: "Why aren't you afraid of blogging, why are you doing this and what results are you seeing?"

  Interestingly, Steve Broback, creator of the Blog Business Summit, is thinking of using the same theme ("getting past the fear of blogging") for his Aug. 17 - 19, 2005 conference in San Francisco. (This is a  great event if you're looking for a useful business blogging conference. I'll be there as a speaker.)

Some of my questions for the panelists:

• Are blogs a viable tool for corporate communications given the fact that blogging, by definition (open and transparent), is the opposite of what defines most corporate culture?
• If the majority of Americans don't know what a blog is (40 - 60% are not familiar with blogs, according to eMarketer's Business of Blogging report), then who is going to read corporate blogs?
• What's the first thing a company should do to start blogging? (This prompted an interesting point-counterpoint response from Intuit's Rosenfeld and GM's Betts. Said Betts, "Study, study, study the blogosphere first." Said Rosenfeld, "Just do it! Then go back and see what your results are."

Thanks to IABC conference blogger Jeremy Popper for his write up of our session.