The Fortune 500's Blogging 42
zlite writes "There's a new wiki that's tracking which of the Fortune 500 have public blogs. So far it appears that less than 20 of them are doing so, and their average share performance badly lags the rest of the F500. Why? This post suggests one reason: it's so risky that companies tend do it only when their traditional corporate messaging isn't working."
Corporate Blogs (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Corporate Blogs (Score:2, Informative)
Traditional companies, maybe. Companies of the future will have to support at least the appearance of openness. See blogs at Google [blogspot.com], Red Hat [redhat.com], Amazon [typepad.com]... See also the Cluetrain Manifesto [cluetrain.com].
Re:Corporate Blogs (Score:3, Interesting)
I'll bet there are more than 20 firms that have internal only blogs, but there are not a lot that have external blogs. I don't think
Re: The Fortune 500's Blogging (Score:5, Insightful)
Whilst being encouraged to record experiences, insights and lessons learnt when working with partners and their products, in a publicly available, searchable format, I found the moment you mention corporate names and *ANY* shortcomings, suddenly this "sharing knowledge" becomes "finding scapegoat".
I guess what's required is an explicit corporate IT policy, with clear, specific guidelines on what can and cannot be blogged, if at all. This policy then needs to be shared, and "promoted" - beginning with the departments that would use it the most - IT. Unless there's a clear directive that knowledge sharing is appreciated, not much would change in the Fortune 500 world
Re: The Fortune 500's Blogging (Score:3)
Wouldn't it just be better for all if the Fortune 500 companies just didn't allow "blogging" at all? It would end the astroturfing, googlebombing, and also the need for endless regulations that would make the whole exercise a bigger waste of time than it alr
Re: The Fortune 500's Blogging (Score:2)
Re: The Fortune 500's Blogging (Score:3, Insightful)
What's all the fuss about, please? (Score:3, Insightful)
I've always regarded them as nothing more than "friendlier press releases". Also, with only a few cosmetic changes, the usual "recent press releases" page bears a striking resemblence to "web logs"...
Depends on the blog (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:What's all the fuss about, please? (Score:2, Insightful)
However, in this world where corporates fall over each other to promote "do no evil" or appear "friendly" (think of the number of staff employed to provide information to random callers - from students looking to do their internships, to university professors, to competitors fishing for information, to, in extreme cases, corporate spies), they then try to promote blogging to *other* parts of the organization than PR/marketing.
The impet
Re:What's all the fuss about, please? (Score:1, Informative)
IBM (Score:5, Informative)
Tech companies blog because it's trendy (Score:2)
Company blogging is a double edged sword... it helps you connect more with clients, but also gives more fodder to your critics and competition. Just wait for the first major lawsuit against a company that uses its own blogs as evidence agains
Re:IBM (Score:1, Offtopic)
risky buisness (Score:2, Interesting)
Statistics (Score:1)
I've seen some relevant reasons first hand... (Score:4, Interesting)
At my current job, there are several outsourcing companies that work onsite for the customer I'm assigned to. I was hanging out late after work one day and one of the guys I'm friends with was taking an "ethics in business" test. The company he worked for had recently been aquired by one of the three letter telco's so all the aquired employees were having the drink their corporate koolaid. So I'm shoulder surfing looking at the test he's taking. The material was such a corporate CYA it wasn't even funny. It could be easily boiled down to "don't commit anything to paper so that its not a lie later." It went into such detail as to recommend "sensitive issues" not be submitted by internal email or memo's since those details could be obtained during a deposition. Instead, invite relevant parties to a meeting and discuss it verbally so there is no record. Yeah, that's real ethics in business for ya.
Re:I've seen some relevant reasons first hand... (Score:2, Insightful)
In related news, behavioralists have verified that biting the hand that feeds you continues to be inadvisable.
Re:I've seen some relevant reasons first hand... (Score:2)
So that narrows it down to pretty much any employee talking about any company?
Usual blogodreck (Score:4, Insightful)
When you finally get to the "corporate blogs", they turn out to be PR pieces.
Nothing to see here, move along.
(It's striking how few blogs use a moderation system, like Slashdot's. Of course, Slashdot still doesn't let you moderate the stories.)
Re:Usual blogodreck (Score:1)
I hear Digg [digg.com] does.
That's total bullshit (Score:2)
In one of Seth Godin [typepad.com]'s online talks, he talks about how he stuck a suction cup to his head (he's bald) and burst all the blood vessels underneath, so he had a huge red mark for three or four months. He says, "blogging is like this; what may seem funny at the time may make it impossible to get a job for
Blogs are great for everything but Press Releases (Score:2, Interesting)
Alternate explanation (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Alternate explanation (Score:2)
Huh? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Huh? (Score:2)
Re:Huh? (Score:1)
Re:CEO blogs (Score:2)
MSFT blogs working (Score:2)
Customer driven Corporate Blogs / Comm. Forums (Score:1)