DRUMS OF CORPORATE BLOGGING COMING CLOSER... DO YOU HEAR THEM?

Lots of stuff on corporate blogging lately. Last week I posted one article from CNN. Now there a flood of them:

Writing the codes on blogs
Companies figure out what's OK, what's not in online realm
by Benjamin Pimentel

Mark Jen became a cause celebre in the blogging world when he was sacked in January after writing about life inside Google in his personal blog. But the experience hasn't dampened the 22-year-old software programmer's passion for blogging.

After joining Plaxo Inc. three months ago, Jen even helped draft the Mountain View firm's blogging guidelines.

Given what he went through, the Plaxo rules are striking: They make it OK to blog on company time and to criticize the corporate bosses. (full article)

Corporations Entering Brave New World of Blogs
By Nicole Ziegler Dizon

When General Motors Corp. wanted to stop speculation this spring that it might eliminate its Pontiac and Buick brands, Vice Chairman Bob Lutz took his case directly to dealers and customers who were up in arms about the possibility.

He wrote about it on the company's blog. (full article)

The naysayer view...

Blogging Is Not Fundamental
By Robert Manning

UPS' Robert Manning urges digital marketers to stop chasing fads such as blogging without first focusing on the fundamentals of digital marketing.

I almost fell out of my Aeron chair when the May 2 issue of Business Week arrived featuring a cover story predicting that "Blogs will change your business." For a minute, I felt ashamed that UPS doesn’t have a blogging or a vlogging (blogging with video) strategy. Please, enough about blogs already. (full article)


Ross Mayfield has a post on how he sees fear and greed driving the corporate blogging market:

Fear, Greed and Social Software
Enterprises are adopting social software out of both fear and greed. Fear is the primary driver for corporate blogging, while greed is driving adoption of social software within the enterprise. I have used this metaphor to explain what I see in the market lately, so here it is in one place.

Fear Drives Corporate Blogging
Fear is a powerful emotion for the corporate animal. An early adopter wave of non-brand-centric tech companies from Sun to Microsoft to SAP saw opportunity to engage developers with the tools they use. Today most every F500 company is looking into blogging, particularly brand centric companies, but they do so differently. All those revolutionary bloggers having conversations about their brands and influencing others is pretty scary. Suddenly your brand is being watched, augmented, de-located. (full post)