Insider's View
Giving Blogs an Enterprising Chance.
By Subhasis B, Head - Product Management
In the years following the dot com bust, the expanding girth of the World Wide Web has continuously burped out technologies that have made the world a much flatter place than when Thomas Freidman last wrote about it. Blogs, in particular have greatly helped in leveling the field between those in high offices and the man on the ground.
The power and reach of this medium is best represented by the fact that it has raised the humble comment, from a form of mere self expression, to a statement for profound social and economic change. The previous year also saw the blog tweeting itself into a tinier, more portable version of itself, bringing more users into its fold and redrawing even more boundaries. But in the corporate corridors, blogging still remains an issue of considerable speculation.
To blog or not to.
A recent observation from one of my colleagues brought home this point. While attending a recent conference for communication and marketing managers, 80% of those present confessed that none of their top executives had ever shown any inclination towards blogging on an enterprise level, they in fact found the increased exposure to their user group unsettling.
A profound statement when we consider that this statement represents the collective mindset of a significant cross section of Bangalore’s IT landscape. What is it about enterprise blogging that gives rise to this phobia? Is it a reluctance to face the user group? Or a fear of getting their inadequate communication skills exposed before a greater audience?
There are some who think that blogs are a total waste of time and there are more relevant issues for enterprises to be concerned with. This and the observation mentioned above are part of the views expressed at a recent team discussion on the feasibility of including blogs in an enterprise intranet application. To say the discussion was lively would be putting it mildly. It was agreed that even though most company chiefs confess to being uncomfortable with the openness that blogs provide their user groups, it is still considered to be the most effective method of knowledge sharing on an enterprise and a B2C level. Understandably, the success of enterprise blogging depends on the comfort level of the users. It’s not enough that we implement a blogging platform in an enterprise intranet and leave it to providence, the users must be driven to utilize and optimize the benefits offered by blogs.
Building bridges
In case of workfloors characterized by glassed partitions and faceless cubicles, blogs help build bridges between these individual islands of thought and enterprise. Bridges thus established promote effective exchange of information between the individual knowledge centres. Moreover, blogs will also help employees improve their communications skills, if that’s the factor holding them back from fully realizing their potential.
Fact of the matter
The public perception of any technology ultimately depends on its end users. A humble can opener was the driving force behind the most devastating terrorist incident in modern history. So did that stop people from using can openers? There’s no reason to shy away from blogs just because they might be used for negative feedback or for attacks against the company. When used with proper security and user controls, blogs have the potential of raising the bar for intellectual exchanges and social interactivity among all levels of the enterprise hierarchy, which is more than what standard intranet tools can ever hope to deliver.
Blogging helps capitalize on pools of expertise within a group, build communities and by promoting effective knowledge management, become a platform to create future leaders. Reasons why I believe an enterprise intranet should incorporate a blogging platform.
About the author
Subhasis B, Head - Product Management
Subhasis has more than 15 years’ experience in Sales & Marketing. He has played key roles in various organizations in Corporate Sales, Account Management and Profit Centre Operations.
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