CEO bloggers still scarce in the UK

That's according to Fiona Walsh, business editor of The Guardian Unlimited, in a nice write-up of The Corporate Blogging Book in today's Guardian: Why CEOs should learn to love the blog.

She mentions two Brit exec bloggers: Carphone Warehouse CEO Charles Dunstone (he's just started blogging again after a gap of several months) and Macmillan CEO Richard Charkin (a regular blogger and a good read, with his comments about the publishing industry and specific books he's interested in).

Fiona took me out for a lunch interview last month when I was in London. Very enjoyable. We went to a trendy pub restaurant near Covent Garden.The face-to-face interview is so old-fashioned these days. It's too bad. I can't think of a single US reporter who's met with me before doing a story.

Read Fiona's article.

Comments

[Chris Clark]

Hi Debbie,

With rare exceptions, usually in publishing and related, British Corporate CEOs view blogs as incomprehensible as a foreign language.

I'm developing ideas for a keynote speech on the subject, and to be honest, finding a choice of words that connects blogs to businesspeople to ROI is not proving easy. In fact, I think there's mileage in not calling a blog a blog, but creating a keynote speech about the new ways to connect with and appeal to customers without mentioning the word. Now we have Web 2.0 coming down on top of us!

Anyone else having this language trouble with CEOs in the UK?

[Bloggers Home Page]

We would be honoured to have your blog on Bloggers home Page. We always need more Brit-Bloggers so you would be especially welcome.

[Mark White]

And it's not just CEO blogs that are taking their time to appear, any sort of blog within the FTSE 250 is still a rarity at the moment from what I have found.

However, there is a growing groundswell of use in the SME area as well as in the political arena which indicates that we might be seeing the same sort of development path as the US experienced a few years ago.