CorporateBloggingBlog

Authenticity and trust: You can't have one without the other

Jesper and Jon is is looking for input on the relation between authenticity and trust. They believe there's a strong relation between them:

We have ended up with a trust-authenticity duality; you can't have one without the other. On one hand authenticity leads to trust, as human beings, we dare trust a person who is authentic. On the other hand we need a certain level of trust to actually perceive a person as being authentic. The relation between the two is way more complex though!

Do you have examples of what makes you perceive a blogger or a company as authentic? they ask. Well, I would like to throw "personality" in, and as a result of that a blogger's more or less unique voice.

Authenticity is, to me, a process and not a situation. As Jesper and Jon seem to think, it's something being built (or not) over time. There are many different ingredients in it. When we're talking about corporate blogging one important ingredient is transparency. I want to read things that I wouldn't have read in other channels of corporate communication. But within their duality this actually relates more to "trust", which still leaves the question of authenticity unanswered.

And that's where I turn to "personality" to find an explanation of authenticity. It's impossible to say what in a text that conveys personality. It will differ between bloggers -- and that's also the point.
I read bloggers that have an annoyingly big ego.
I read bloggers that are impressed by other's egos.
I read bloggers that asks more questions than they give answers.
I read bloggers that never doubts their own answers.
I read bloggers that tell me about their family and friends.
I read bloggers that I doubt have friends.

But they're all personalities to me. I know how they write. They might surprise me, they might even be unpredictable in what they say and think, but I'm sure it's them.

That's authenticity to me.

RSS makes internal blogs useful

Reflecting on my post about IBM's 3,600 internal blogs, Alex Barnett gives some insight into Microsoft's internal blogging. It seems as if it has been slow to take off, but "things have moved" in the last two years.

What makes the internal blogs really useful is RSS - it isn't like subscribing to an internal distribution email alias - the thoughts, links and comments become an archive of knowledge and conversations, captured in the blogs - filtered and distributed by the magic of RSS in a spam-free method. All potentially discoverable through search applications. Internal blogs can also an effective venting and ranting platform, pointing out the good and the bad of the internal workings of a business and the competition in a safe, behind-the-firewall, environment.

Given their potential I'm quite sure internal blogs will soon become a default feature of the internal communication / KM landscape for businesses large and small.

Couldn't agree more.

Technorati tags: internal blogging, corporate blogging, intranet

3,600+ blogs: A glance into IBM's internal blogging

Through the central blog dashboard at the intranet W3, IBMers now can find more than 3,600 blogs written by their co-workers. As of June 13 there were 3,612 internal blogs with 30,429 posts. Internal blogging is still at a stage of testing and trying at IBM but the number of blogs is growing rapidly -- and they are appreciated, with everything from water cooler talk to discussions about IBM's business strategies.

Click for larger screenshot

The most common way to find internal blogs is the central blog dashboard, says Philippe Borremans, PR Manager for IBM in Belgium and Luxembourg. It's found on an area of the intranet that is dedicated to collaboration tools.

Philippe Borremans' internal blog.
Click for larger screenshot.

US, Canada and Australia are very active countries but also in small European countries there are quite many internal bloggers. 147 in Sweden and 170 in the Netherlands to mention two examples.

Catalyst for discussion
Michael Lowry (external personal blog) works for IBM in Sweden as a consultant and instructor for IBM software. He writes one or two posts per week minimum about whatever is going on in his workday, including product updates or product changes.

"Every once in a while it'll be a catalyst that'll start a discussion", says Michael. "I've received positive feedback saying 'I read your blog and find it useful, I've run into the same thing and it's great you write about it'."

Blog topics
IBM hasn't studied what topics people generally are writing about but Michael gives me an idea of the most common topics.

News or events that affect the business
"When IBM sold the personal computing division rumours were flying around before it actually happened and people were blogging about that, giving their opinions about what was going to happen and how it would affect IBM."

Metablogging
"It's a new technology of special interest to people who blog."

Administrative things
"The little changes going on in the company -- the water-cooler talk."

Product announcements
"Not necessarily of general interest but of interest to the specific community working with the product."

Hints and tips
"...for example about what bloggers have found interesting on the intranet."

Sensitive? Think of yourself as a reporter protecting your source
Some of these could include potentially sensitive subjects. Philippe says (and Intel learned) "anything you write internally can go externally. It's a copy-paste world. But people know that we have to respect intellectual property, confidential information and all these things."

"I can usually find a way to write what I want to write without hurting anyone's feelings or revealing anything confidential. If I have to I'll think of myself like a newspaper reporter trying to protect a source. I can change the wording a little bit to make it more general but still convey what I'm trying to convey", Michael says.

Blogs on their way to become standard tools?
Internal blogging at IBM is just one of many internal communications tools, of course. Actually it's one of the less known tools, according to Philippe. The main internal channel is the intranet which more and more is moving towards a personalized portal. Employees also have a wide range of other social tools to use: chats, very active electronic forums etc.

"Blogging is from a communications point of view not considered a standard tool, although this will probably change. The Communications function is starting to look at how we can communicate official internal communication through blogs", says Philippe.

Technorati tags: internal blogging, corporate blogging, enterprise blogging, intranet, ibm

Writing the codes on blogs

The San Francisco Chronicle today features an article about companies trying to "figure out what's OK, what's not in online realm".

In a bid to avoid legal and organizational problems, many companies have issued blogging guidelines. In essence, they tell employees to use common sense and abide by established rules about not divulging company secrets or violating federal securities disclosure rules.

I'm interviewed -- as a result of the blogging policies comparison I did -- and many of the interviewed companies are the ones that do have policies. But I don't think the conclusion of the article is "beware of blogs". On the contrary:

"The blog-and-lose-your-job (scare) is vastly exaggerated," Phipps of Sun said. "If someone is dumb enough about blabbing about company secrets, it doesn't matter what medium you give them. They'll still blab about company secrets.'

I'm glad the writer Benjamin decided to quote me on the paragraph below. I think this is an important aspect of how blogs can/might/will change corporate PR culture:

With a blog, a single employee, no matter where in the corporate hierarchy, can become an important person for some audiences or groups of customers [...] That could cause some uncertainty with top execs and the PR department. New people become visible. But for a good company with committed employees, this will be positive.

Am I right?

Technorati tags: business blogging, corporate blogging, blogging policies

Fewer subscribers with RSS ads?

In an interview, Feedburner's Dick Costolo claims that feeds with ads are not losing subscribers -- but don't count on it just yet.

Reboot7: Lessons from Wikipedia

More from Reboot7 -- Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia: There are now 22 languages in Wikipedia with more than 10,000 articles each. Everyone can write of course, that's the basic idea, but Wikipedia is actually pushed forward by a small committed community. 50% of all edits are done by just 0.7% of all users. The most active 2% of the users have done 73% of all edits.

In this there are lessons for people that "do all kinds of interesting things on the internet". In a community model, says Wales, "reputation is a natural outgrowth of human interactions. Users are powerful and must be respected."

Every user/reader/community member counts, I guess he's saying. Agree.

Technorati tags: reboot, reboot7

Reboot7: Technology with heart

Some great perspectives as Reboot7 continues. Dina Mehta is talking right now, and as a background to her topic "Social tools for research and collaboration" she told us about her experiences during the South East Asia earthquake and tsunami last year. Social tools she says, based on how for example blogs was used, will become a natural extension of rapid adaptation to chaotic conditions.

But it's not the technology as such. It's the real voices speaking in real time -- what she calls "Technology with heart".

Dina stresses, as Jason Calcanis of Weblogs, Inc. did earlier, blogging as a societal movement. A way of life, even.

Blogging is not just a publishing format, they say. Not merely a tool. Jason actually talked about blogging as a "belief". A belief in the truth.

I'm not sure how much of this is relevant to corporate blogging. I'm pretty sure that we never will be allowed to start corporate blogs if we approach it with this perspective. But I'm equally sure that we have to understand it. Truth, transparency, openness are inseparable.

Thinking of it, I am sure that this is relevant to corporate blogging too. Otherwise a blog is just a technical tool.

Technorati tags: reboot, reboot7