Open Kimono
The Microsoft thing debated internally for all to see as Scoble challenges the way the company backed off supporting some anti-discrimination legislation in Washington State. Here’s his boss’s boss response. Other employees are jumping mad.
First, this is certainly a change in corporate communications – at least for the companies willing to tolerate embrace blogging. It is incredibly transparent – I guess follows the maxim that companies with nothing to hide needn’t fear transparency. If you are a stakeholder and you really can’t get a fix on Microsoft’s position via the media, then here it is. Once we waited for C/Net to publish another ‘leaked’ Microsoft memo. Now we get them real-time via blogs.
It’s also a shift in employee communications. Here we have the management/employee ‘food-chain’ exchanging views for everyone to see. No closed-door conversations. No gossip about what was said and what wasn’t. No time-lag between information distribution and eyeballs (total aside but a major issue for many companies is the hours it takes for email to reach desktops). Everyone is informed. Everyone gets to participate.
Second, it skirts an entire media cycle. Once upon a time we would have read about this exchange in the NYTimes or in The Reg. Now it’s here for all interested parties to see – unfolding in real-time. A journalist once said to me that transparency isn’t good for journalism. Maybe this points to that being true. If nothing it kills the leaked memo scoop so skillfully used by PR pros to manipulate the media generate coverage.
Third, and if nothing else, this certainly positions Microsoft as a company
willing to engage in dialog. But it’s more than that – this is an indicator of a new kind of
company. A company engaged in conversations and transparency. You could
even ask the question – How participatory is your company?
Microsoft might not be perfect – by any stretch – but this does signal a different kind of company.
Schwartz On The Red Couch
Frankly this piece is so much better than BusinessWeek’s somewhat pathetic reporting on the Blogosphere. It gets at why Participatory Communications is turning the way businesses communicate on its head. It gets at how blogging builds dialog with and within communities.
Sun was fast to embrace blogging… Shel covers the blogosphere with comments from Noel ‘The Terrier’ Hartzel and Schwartz.
Noel’s quote gets at the new era of Participatory Communications which is upon us:
Sun’s blogging explosion was embraced without ambivalence by the corporate communications people. "Most PR teams would cringe, but ours didn’t. We have a transparent culture and competitors like HP do not. Our PR team is thinking about how to use technology and culture as a corporate weapon and blogging does both. Hartzell added, "Sun is a company whose success is based on building communities. So a key function of the communications team is to be an information gatherer, analyzer and counselor on participating in these communities. – Noel
“It’s kerosene on the fire. The Participation Age has been on the Net since email. Moving from there to blogging is like moving from carrier pigeon to phone. The emergence of blogs means we have passed beyond early crude tools and it results in fundamental changes on how everything relates. While a journalist is writing about my blog, I’m blogging about his journalism. This is change.” – Schwartz.
From Schwartz’ perspective, blogging is not an appendage to Sun’s marketing communications strategy, it is central to it. He believes that the 1000 Sun bloggers contribution hasn’t just moved the needle for the company, “they’ve moved the whole damned compass. The perception of Sun as a faithful and authentic tech company is now very strong. What blogs have done has authenticated the Sun brand more than a billion dollar ad campaign could have done. I care more about the ink you get from developer community than any other coverage. Sun has experienced a sea change in their perception of us and that has come from blogs. Everyone blogging at Sun is verifying that we possess a culture of tenacity and authenticity. “ – The Red Couch
Arianna’s Blog…
Great idea from Arianna – but one that is likely to incense the blog purists:
Get ready for the next level in the blogosphere.
Arianna Huffington, the columnist and onetime candidate for governor of California, is about to move blogging from the realm of the anonymous individual to the realm of the celebrity collective.
She has lined up more than 250 of what she calls "the most creative minds" in the country to write a group blog that will range over topics from politics and entertainment to sports and religion. It is essentially a nonstop virtual talk show that will be part of a Web site that will also serve up breaking news around the clock. It is to be introduced May 9. – New York Times, April 25.
Nothing new though. Take a look at Corante. Walt is on the right track:
"This gives me a chance to sound off with a few words or a long editorial," said Mr. Cronkite, 88, the longtime "CBS Evening News" anchorman. "It’s a medium that is new and interesting, and I thought I’d have some fun."
I’m surprised more corporates aren’t pursuing the group blog. One group blog on a topic might be more powerful in terms of attracting readers and driving dialog than a multitude of smaller blogs – which often wander or aren’t powerful enough to ignite conversations.
Darwin on blogs….
In stark contract to BW… read on…
News Blinks Friday April 22
- America lags in broadband – and based on my last trip downunder, NZ is in a far worse position. "In 2001-04, Mr Bleha notes, America fell from fourth to 13th place in global rankings of broadband internet usage" – The Economist.
- Mossberg on blogging. Consumer focused.
- The Future of Jounralism – The Economist on the Murdoch keynote. “I believe too many of us editors and reporters are out of touch with our readers,” Rupert Murdoch, the boss of News Corporation, one of the world’s largest media companies, told the American Society of Newspaper Editors last week.
Another dangerous cliché is to consider bloggers intrinsically parasitic on (and thus, ultimately, no threat to) the traditional news business. True, many thrive on debunking, contradicting or analysing stories that originate in the old media. In this sense, the blogosphere is, so far, mostly an expanded op-ed medium. But there is nothing to suggest that bloggers cannot also do original reporting. Glenn Reynolds, whose political blog, Instapundit.com, counts 250,000 readers on a good day, often includes eyewitness accounts from people in Afghanistan or Shanghai, whom he considers “correspondents” in the original sense of the word. – The Economist, April 29
