Scoble’s Link Blog

http://mmanuel.typepad.com/media_guerrilla/2005/02/the_hitchhikers.html

Weblog: Media Guerrilla
Source: The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Blog Universe
Link: http://mmanuel.typepad.com/media_guerrilla/2005/02/the_hitchhikers.html

I had the opportunity to speak at a PRSA-SF luncheon this afternoon about blogging and its impact on public relations.  It was a panel discussion consisting of myself, Jeremy Zawodny, Yahoo! Search evangelist and tech blogger extraordinaire, Michael Bazeley, columnist for the Mercury News and co-author of SiliconBeat, and Todd Friedman, managing director for The Blueshirt Group, a SF-based IR firm.

I’ll just state up front that when it comes to talking about how social media (e.g., blogs, wikis, etc.) are impacting communications, you can literally take the conversation in a thousand different directions, but we seemed to collectively steer the discussion toward employee and corporate blogs and the challenges companies face with them.  Naturally, policy making/best practices were a major part of the conversation.

I’m not going to re-hash everything we talked about (PRSA members, meeting notes should be made available shortly), but I will say I think it’s painfully clear that a lot of companies are struggling right now with how they can mitigate the risks — both real and perceived — of employee and corporate blogs, and that for some organizations, the risks still unfortunately outweigh the rewards. 

I think a lot of factors (maybe too many) play a role in corporate blogging policies right now, ranging from a company’s size and communication style to its culture.  Likewise, a lot of corporate figures insist on playing a role in policy setting ranging from product management, to legal teams, to IR heads to corp. comm. directors.  Depending on the company, it can get messy real quick – and for some, that alone can be a deterrent.

Honestly, I don’t think there will ever be a one-size-fits-all approach to establishing corporate guidelines on blogging, but I do think there are some fundamental principles all companies can take and tailor as they see fit for their organization.  Robert Scoble’s corporate weblog manifesto is probably the best attempt I’ve seen at capturing these principles to date.  Also, a lot of thought was offered on this subject during Global PR Blog Week.

Finally, I just noticed this today, Doc Searls posted some thoughts related to blog policies:

Earl Gilmore, the first tech client of my old ad agency (way back around the turn of the 80s) had an employee policy manual with two pages in it. Page 1 said "Rule #1: Use good judgement." Page 2 said "Violate Rule #1 and you’re in deep shit." So, when somebody drowns in shit for syndicating their own bad judgement, that’s not a black eye for blogging. It’s stupidity with an RSS feed.

There’s much more to discuss on this front and others, but I’m glad the conversation is happening.  I think in very short order, best practices for corporate blogging will emerge and serve as models for others to build on.

 

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