Advanced Organizational Communication

Organizational Communication Imperatives and Corporate Blogging, by Kennie Swanson

2006-05-05T16:32:00.001-04:00

Context for this post

Corporate blogging has sprouted from organizational communication as a fascinating way to connect internally and externally to individuals interested in the happenings of a particular organization. Blogs have made the impact of a tidal wave over the past decade and while corporate blogging is still relatively new, it has already changed the way many people conduct and view business. Many organizational imperatives inform the practice of corporate blogging and for this reason it was very difficult to try and zero in on only one to describe. However, after some careful thought, I think that the level of organizational identification members have towards their corporation has the strongest effect on corporate blogging.

Organizational identification is accomplished within a company when members of that company take the characteristics of the organization including its values, beliefs, rites and culture and make them their own. In order for a blog to even be thought of, one must be vested in the factors for which a company stands for. Furthermore, when running a corporate blog, this sense of identifying with an organization heavily shines through as the backbone for which posts, comments, and even templates are created. From the corporate blogs that we have been exposed to in class discussions, our interviews, and the research of fellow bloggers, I have found that all carry a high intensity of organizational identification.

A great real life example of organizational identification and corporate blogging is evident through John Cass of Backbone Media. John is the director of corporate blogging strategies and he is a true believer of the power which corporate blogging beholds. He is the main contributor to the Blog Survey Blog and is clearly in high identification with Backbone’s values, beliefs, rites, and culture. His association with Backbone is evident from the content that he produces as well as his feelings towards the company in relation to blogging as he has been much appreciated to share with our class. I also found that organizational identification had a tremendous impact on the way in which one of my interviewees, Tim Jackson blogs on behalf of Masi Bicycles.

Tim has been a die hard bicycle enthusiast since he was just a child. I’m serious; he has a picture of himself on his blog, Masi Guy when he got his first bike for Christmas. Now, Tim says that he is living the dream as a brand manager / corporate blogger for Masi bikes and I can’t think of another corporate blogger on earth who identifies more with their company than he does. While reading Tim’s blog, it is quickly apparent that Tim has taken the heart and soul of Masi bikes and made them into fun interesting blog posts. If Tim did not identify with Masi as an organization to the level that he does, it’s questionable whether the blog would even exist and it’s certain that it would not be written with the same persona that has made it so successful.

Through blogging as a class we have talked about some very interesting issues in regards to corporate blogging. And, in dealing with organizational identification, I definitely feel that our own blogs progressed more and more once individuals within the class took in the values, beliefs, rites, and culture that Dr. Carl established for advanced organizational communication. All in all, I’d say it’s been a pretty majestic experience and one that I will take with me in pursuit of my own career. To all my fellow bloggers out there, it’s been real and I’ll catch you in the blogosphere!

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Organizational Communication Imperatives and Corporate Blogging, by Krystle Randall

2006-05-05T16:32:00.000-04:00

Context for this post

When I first learned that we would be learning about blogging in our Organizational Communication class I thought I misunderstood. Before this class I thought blogs were just an on-line journal that internet junkies would add to each night before bed. After our class discussions, readings, and contributions by Mr. John Cass of Backbone Media, I have a whole new understanding of and appreciation for blogging.

As I reflect back on our corporate blogging interviews as well as our own experiences blogging, it’s only natural to apply the organizational communication imperatives. The first one I would like to discuss is organizational identification. This is when an employee highly identifies themselves with a company’s values, rituals, and ultimate mission. A highly identified individual will truly feel as though they are an important and influential part of the organization. Having organizationally identified employees can be good for a company. If an employee writes a post they need to believe in what they are writing. This is especially true for commenting because the employees need to be able to respond to constructive as well as destructive criticism. If they are not identified with the organizations values, this may reflect in their posts and comments which would only be detrimental to the company’s credibility.

When employees are identified with an organization they often take on automatic responsibility. This is when an employee will take responsibility for anything and everything that they have the expertise to. If they do not know how to do something, they will instead, automatically direct the information or task to someone who knows how.

This is also beneficial for corporate blogs. If an employee is surfing the blogosphere and finds some negative sentiments posted about their company and/or their products, what are they going to do? Some employees will just read in the information, maybe pass the link on to some colleagues. However, an employee that practices automatic responsibility will comment on the post, say they are from the company, and provide the appropriate facts to defend their argument. That employee took the initiative to stand up and defend their company name because they had the facts. Automatic responsibility is also great for a corporate blog that is maintained by multiple people. One person may normally write the posts and another may research, however, if other aspects of one person’s job become too overwhelming, other employees may take over the blog to ensure consistency as well as credibility. If nobody maintained the blog and responded to comments it could hurt the company image all around.

Both organizational identification and automatic responsibility are a result of a corporate culture. I would also say that a company’s culture can be reflected through their blog. Redding’s ideal SCOPE model can be used to analyze company blogging as well as blogging policies. Supportiveness is evident in the amount of help or input that is put into the blog, researching for blogging topics, as well as responding to comments. Even starting up a blog for a corporation needs a lot of support because it is seen as risky. Credibility is displayed when a company posts and responds to both constructive and destructive comments. A company can give the impression of being more credible more easily through a blog than other marketing tools because blogs are not only a dialogue between consumers and producers but they are also extremely human in tone. Blogs reflect a company’s openness as well. If a company chooses to allow comments, and posts positive and negative information they are seen as more open. Some company’s even post their blogging policies as well. Some companies choose to monitor comments and some do not. Participatory decision making is seen in blogs by
identifying who does the posting, who is allowed to post, and who is not allowed to post. Blogging can actually facilitate participatory decision making because it can connect many employees in one forum. An emphasis on high performance goals is seen in blogging through automatic responsibility as well as maintenance of the blog.

The overall corporate culture of the company can be shaped and changed by the introduction of corporate blogging. A blog can connect employees and build the morale of the internal culture. If employees feel as though they can learn more about each other and collaborate on ideas in a more convenient way, they will do it and blogging does just that. Some companies even use blogs as a kind of internal newsletter. They may post pictures and small comments on the company picnic or holiday party. This can lighten the mood of the corporate culture and bring employees together. External audiences, or consumers, can also gain a new perspective of a company. For example, some companies which may normally be seen as high-tech or inhumane can gain human appeal by using certain language or humor. This can make consumers who would normally be intimidated by the brand gain a whole new outlook on the company, just from their blog.

The future of blogs is unknown however, I have a prediction. I have already started to see that many companies have begun jumping on the corporate blogging bandwagon. If companies do not realize why blogging is important, they most likely will not benefit. Blogging is not just some additional marketing tactic that everyone should do. If this happens we will definitely see more synthetic transparency taking place. Companies will want to seem like they are transparent and credible by blogging, but really they just began blogging because everyone else is doing it. In conclusion, I have learned that, under the right conditions and for the right reasons, blogging can benefit a corporation both culturally as well as financially.

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Organizational Communication Imperatives and Corporate Blogging, by Leah Hyland

2006-05-05T16:31:00.000-04:00

Context for this post

Organizational identification is one of the greatest organizational imperatives that informs the practice of corporate blogging. Identification is "an attitude or incipient action," and identification means that a person tries to select a decision that matches or fits with the interest of the organization (Tompkins, 2005). When the employee identity is aligned so much with the organization that they begin to speak about the organization as "we" instead of "they," s/he has a high level of organizational identification (Feather and Rauter, 2004). This concept is essential when a company decides to blog for many reasons. The organization must make sure to choose the right people to blog because it will affect the readership, the success, and the outreach capabilities of the blog on the blogosphere. This ripple effect will not occur if companies do not consider organizational identification when deciding to blog.

If a person were going to be the face of a company, typically the company would want the person to be a good representation of their organization. When blogging, the employee who actually blogs is the first point of contact to readers, and this makes deciding who is going to blog very important. One should choose someone who identifies with the company and its goals and visions, in order to have the appropriate appearance to the public. If the blogger does not care about the company, how can s/he be expected to care about the blog, and its content? Most likely, the blogger will not post relevant or meaningful information, which will eventually affect the company and how the public perceives it. The face of the organization must emulate the ideals of the company and choosing someone strongly connected will ultimately be in the organization's best interest.

The blogger that identifies with the company will care and contribute to that organization and thus the blog. Therefore posts will be more pertinent, and generate richer content. Since the content will be relevant, the readers will appreciate the blog more. If they see a caring and consistent blogger who posts thoughtful things about the organization (or whatever pertains to the purpose of the blog) readers will visit often and probably add comments to the organization's blog, or their own blog. In turn, this will create a sort of community around the blogger and his/her audience, which will benefit the company.

Since the blogger has strong organizational identification, and has now created an active public through posting, and commenting, and outreach, the public itself may begin to show signs of identification with the organization. Due to the personable nature of a blog, the readers will develop a sort of relationship with the blogger and therefore the company. This is one of the greatest strengths of a blog: it creates ambassadors for the organization. These people will typically promote and buy products of the company because they believe in the blog!

A ripple effect has now occurred, beginning with company's choosing a blogger that is strongly identified with the organization. This blogger has created a blog that is interesting and relevant to the company and the public/consumers. The public will then continue to monitor and comment on the blog, which creates a community around the organization. This community will inevitably become identified with the company as well, creating ambassadors and goodwill for the organization. All these effects would not be possible if the corporate blogger was not identified with the organization s/he worked for.

*On an aside, I would be curious to know if CEO blogs are any more successful than "lower-level" employee blogs—is being higher up in the organization chart correlated with how strongly identified you are??

Works Cited

Feather, N. T. & Rauter, K.A. (2004). Organizational citizenship behaviours in relation to job status, job insecurity, organizational commitment and identification, job satisfaction and work values [Electronic version]. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 77, 81-95.

Tompkins, P. (2005). Apollo, Challenger, Columbia--the decline of the space program: a study in organizational communication. Los Angeles: Roxbury.

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Final Blog Postings: Organizational Communication Imperatives and Corporate Blogging

2006-05-05T16:19:00.000-04:00

It's that time of the semester again!

Our semester is now complete and I would like to announce that our final blog postings will come from three of our students reflecting on how organizational communication imperatives (what communication principles organizations need to enact in order to be successful) impact corporate blogging efforts.

Specifically, students were required to write an essay (500-750 words) that shows how an organizational communication imperative (organizational identification, automatic responsibility, empowerment, speaking truth to power, communication climate, etc.) informs the practice of corporate blogging.

In three separate posts to follow, we will hear from the top three responses to this question from the Spring 2006 class. I have received permission from each of the students to post their brief essays (in alphabetical order):

Leah Hyland
Krystle Randall
Kennie Swanson

And please note that for most of the students in the class this was their first exposure to corporate blogging. Feel free to comment!

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corporate blogging organizational communication

We've come a long way baby

2006-04-25T19:20:00.000-04:00

I was reading over our class blog and I must say we have certainly picked up momentum and, if I can say so myself, we are turning out to be quite the informational blog. I really think we have some great resources here--we have information on how to start blogging, why people should blog, what some of the benefits and detriments can be (opening the door for critical feedback, competitors seeing your products), and other neat tips and factoids. At the beginning of the semester I would have never thought that we would grow so much as a blog.

So, congrats team! We have successfully navigated the world of blogs (with much more to learn of course), and we have even begun to network--another great aspect of blogging. I know I have met and interacted with multiple people with whom I hope to continue speaking with. I have also had the privilege to be involved in a podcast, "earSHOT" with Edelman PR (http://www.edelman.com/) which should be available via their website shortly.

Thus, this is not a goodbye, but merely a "see you around" the blogosphere :-)

Cheers,
Leah

Corporate Blogs – Does Breadth of Success Depend on the Popular Interest Level of the Industry?

2006-04-24T17:51:00.000-04:00

In my interview with Cathy Taylor of Adweek’s blog, Adfreak, she mentioned the fact that she’s “lucky” that her blog covers such a popular topic – advertising – because it’s something that everyone is exposed to and that people are likely to have a general interest in; as a result, it is a very popular blog, and a great majority of visitors to the blog are regular people, not industry professionals. Advertising is a very large, very public, very broad field, so it’s easy to see why many people would be interested in reading about it, especially in the short, witty, image- and link-filled form of a blog post. She contrasted her blog with having a blog about wallpaper, which has a “built-in audience,” where really only the few people involved with the industry would become involved with such a blog, and far fewer people in the general public would pay attention to or care about it. This is evidence that all corporate bloggers must each have a unique sense of what they see as “success,” because there is such variety in the range of readership.

Do you think a more niche-based blog, such as one about wallpaper, could ever rise to the level of popularity of a blog about a more universally popular topic? If a signifier of success is the number of visitors, are niche blogs doomed to be less active?

Shameless Self-Promotion

2006-04-24T06:22:00.000-04:00

As I was online window shopping at Bluefly.com, an online store that sells designer clothes and accessories at discounted prices, and I noticed the retailer had their own blog, Flypaper. A blog about clothes and fashion and Hollywood and things I can’t afford - an automatic winner in my book!

I did, however, notice something else interesting about this blog – nearly all of the posts end with a direct link to a product sold on Bluefly.com. The posts are usually about popular topics in fashion, so most of the time, the linked product looks like or is loosely related to something posted. The blog is more of an entertainment blog, as the posts don’t discuss the particular products, yet the company still uses it as a marketing tool. I suppose if someone is interested in the topic at hand and in the company (since I assume that most people probably find the blog through the link on the main site), they may also be interested in a related product, but I honestly wonder what percentage of the people reading the blog will even consider buying the item in the link.

As with any company, especially in the fashion industry, it’s important for Bluefly to promote themselves as innovative in their industry and as selling products that are “in” in today’s Hollywood-celebrity-trend-obsessed society, so I can see why they have chosen to do this; if people in their target audience see that the clothes on their site look like or resemble the styles represented in today’s pop culture, they may be reassured that what they sell is “in,” which may lead to a purchase. Of course, what they’re doing is not going to hurt them, but will it help them? Are people really going to respond to this? Would you?

I mean, of course every company uses a blog to promote their brand, image, and developments, but do any others promote specific products (especially products that are sold through the company but not made by the company) through links like this? I searched high and dry for another company or retailer who did this type of direct marketing of products they sell on their own blog, but I couldn’t find any. Has anyone ever seen this before on another site?

Blogs vs. Message Boards

2006-04-24T04:17:00.000-04:00

After having just done a research project about another web-based communication phenomenon – the message board (music fan-based boards in particular) – for my Media Audiences class, I thought I’d look into comparing message boards to blogs used for business purposes.

Although they have a similar purpose of facilitating communication between companies and the public, the dynamics of each and the amount and type of communication they allow are very different. In an article by social design consultant Lee LeFever, he presents the dissimilarities of the two. He states that the major difference is that:

"Weblogs are individual or small group resources – the control of content and value is driven by a single person or small group. Message Boards are group resources – the control of content and value is shared equally across all users."

For this reason, message board discussions are generally more open and less monitored or moderated, because there is usually a bigger group involved in the discussion, thus producing a lot more information and activity than there is on a blog, which has only a few selected posters (who in the corporate blogging context, are likely to be employees of the company). Some of the other major differences include:
• Authoring of New Topics: On blogs, topics are started by the authorized poster(s), which are usually an individual or a small group; on message boards, topics are started by anyone who registers or is allowed to post in the community, which is usually a larger number of people
• Intent: Blogs are intended to provide personal accounts, news, or reflection for others to read and don’t solely rely on interaction for content; message boards are intended to provide group input, decision making, and collaboration, where there is more interaction
• Responses: On blogs, comments are not required and not always present; on message boards, replies and interaction are necessary to build a discussion and execute the intent

I couldn’t find many examples of corporate message boards, but I did see that Adobe, Apple, and Dell all provide forums on their websites. For the most part, the posters are customers discussing products or asking questions about products, and employees are not really involved. These boards make for a great customer service tool, since anyone can post their question or concern and get an answer from people who have experience using the same product, assumingly in less time than if he or she were to call the company’s customer service number and deal with all the aggravation of being transferred and waiting on hold. I’m not sure if this type of forum would work as well for a non-technology company that probably deals with fewer questions than one with these types of products, but it would be a good place for fans of any type of product or brand to come together and discuss it. Do you think a message board could benefit any company, or are blogs the way to go?

What can blogging bring?

2006-04-24T02:06:00.000-04:00

What can a blog do if it’s successful? I found a very interesting list of potential benefits on the web here: http://www.tmcnet.com/usubmit/2006/04/17/1578027.htm

This site lists 7 good things that can come from blogging:

1) Humanize your business, which is something we’ve talked about as a class.
2) Improve your customer service. It can provide easier access to answers for customers.
3) Give your target market information they’re looking for.
4) Drive traffic to your sales website.
5) Build your credibility (unless you’re Walmart) and establish yourself as an industry expert.
6) Promote your products or services.
7) Generate extra income.

This is a pretty good look at the upside of blogging. For success, this site recommends similar tips that we’ve seen here: great content, regular updating and having a distinct voice. It says that blogs are not the place for corporate speak and that people are often drawn to them because they offer the human element that we’ve so often talked about.
I felt this would be another great addition to the multitude of posts we already have considering what makes a blog successful. The ones we’ve defined as being successful, are they getting some of these benefits listed above from blogging? Or did they define success by other means?

To be or not to be?

2006-04-24T01:41:00.000-04:00

To blog or not to blog? This is the question that seems to be circling around. Sure, there are benefits. Well, wait, there CAN be benefits, but there are still infinite risks. Hell, if Google can accidentally delete their own blog, bad things can happen to anyone. Yes, it’s true: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2006/03/and-were-back.html

So, the question is, do the benefits outweigh the risks?

I think it really depends on the company. I think it REALLY depends on whether or not the company has the right person.

My fellow poster, Bruce Wayne, mentioned in his post that language is absolutely essential in branding. What sense would it make to have someone with no experience in physics trying to explain coulombs? None. Obviously, you need an author knowledgeable of the subject. You can’t have someone blog about something they know nothing about. They need to have access to the language and the culture of the corporation and corporation’s field.

So, what do you need for a successful blog. I happen to like Rick Short of Indium’s 4 P’s as a brief way to assess if a blog is right for you or not. They are:

Point: Your blog needs to have a specific purpose.

Passion: Don’t bother if you’re not interested in the topic.

Personality: This is where having the right person comes in. You need someone who has to skills and the language to communicate with your target audience as well as the personality to carry it all.

Perseverance: It needs to be a routine. A blog should be consistently updated.
You can see his post on this here: http://www.indium.com/rickshort/entry.php?id=158”

The Future of Blogging

2006-04-23T15:01:00.000-04:00

Throughout this semester we have hit upon some very interesting topics in regards to corporate blogging. Some of the topics that stick out in my mind in regards to blogging are its uses as a career booster, a marketing tool, and as a function for coporations to be transparent. There are also some challenges that face blogging including credibility, ethics, and time contraints for working professionals. So where does the conclusion of our blogging experience leave us thus far and what does the future of blogging look like?

Well, i think the notion that blogs are here to stay is fairly grounded from its world wide acceptance and high usage. So if you think you can avoid them, think twice. As the popular qoute goes, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em. But will blogs serve as a place for open discussion, or will they migrate towards simply being the next generation of marketing? I think they will do both. One of my interviewee's, '>Max Goldman of Success Factors, stated that his company is trying to evangelize blogging into more of a real time discussion. Where as with other companies, their blogs serve as a blatant way to advertise themselves to consumers. However, I think the nature of the blog, with it's followers backing the goal of transparency, shall overcome corporations that appear synthetic.

In the mean time, i think blogs will evolve and new forms of blogging will emerge that make it more time conscious and convenient for today's working professionals. Wharton legal studies professor Kevin Werbach states that two things are certain: "Blogging will remain disruptive to the traditional media, and new uses will surface. You are going to see blogging move to video and instant messaging. "It's just the beginning." Also Loic Le Meur suggests that audblogging, or blogging by means of audio voice recording is another path that may become popular for blogs, especially if they can be transcribed into searchable text.

It will be very exciting to see how these advancements in blogging will affect the blogosphere. Can you think of any other things to look out for in the future? Overall, i think it will be very important for all of us to stay up to date with the latest trends and technologies to make sure we are not left in the dust like so many before us have already experienced.

One of the Most Effective Corporate Blogs

2006-04-22T14:51:00.000-04:00

For my second interview for the Corporate Blogging Study I interviewed Aliza Pilar Sherman. Aliza is not a corporate blogger but rather a blogger specialist. During the interview she mentioned that one of the most effective corporate blogs out there right now is actually by GM. I was extremely surprised to hear this being that GM is such a huge corporation but in fact they have a blog that is personal, effective, fresh and appeals to the kind of audience that reads blogs (a younger, more hip audience). After looking over the blog there is no surprise to why it is held in such high esteem. The blog exhibits posts by the Vice Chairman of GM and covers topics ranging from global product plans to the new Saturn concept car. Please check out this blog at http://fastlane.gmblogs.com/ and check out some information on Aliza Pilar Sherman at http://www.mediaegg.com/. Thanks!

What Do I Blog About??

2006-04-22T01:32:00.000-04:00

Alright, by now I think that many of us have a pretty good idea of the momentum corporate blogging is picking up and the potential benefits towards one's career for starting a blog. However, amongst all this hype and hurry there is still a question that I think many others, myself included, have towards starting a blog which is; what do I blog about? For those of us in college right now, this concept is seemingly hard to grasp. In the good old teenage days we didn't have to worry about what kind of information we used to present ourselves as because most of the time it was in a joking manner and it was also only known about by our own friends. Now, i hate to say it, but it's time to face the music. Ahhh we are getting old!! People take what we say seriously and even worse (for some), our careers depend on the way in which we choose to show ourselves in the public eye (myspace, blogs, ect...).

So I was interested if i could get some good advice about how, or what to blog about. After doing a little research of my own I found a great post by Debbie Weil titled, Top 7 tips to write an effective business blog. The 7 tips she gave are as follows:

1. Start with a topic you're passionate about.
-Basically this means the theme of your blog and it should be related to the business or profession that you are interested in.
2. Concentrate on shorter, more frequent entries in your blog
-Feewww! I'm always worried about whether or not a post is going to win the nobel peace prize or not, but I guess it's better to be consistantly involved.
3. Let yourself go as a writer; let your authentic “voice” emerge
- Now this is the tricky part. Since we are "adults" now we need to find a happy medium that allows us to express ourselves, but at the same time mean business.
4. Use correct grammar and syntax (no misspellings allowed, just as on your resume or your site)
- arrrg, i luv typin in mah' own style but i guess that is a bad habit i need to break!
5. Purposefully organize the content of your blog
- Think about who might be reading your blog and how to get more traffic by using tricks like keywords.
6. Post a new entry at least once a week, preferably two or three times a week
- This may take some discipline but i think it can be done.
7. Include your key contact information on your blog
- Thats the purpose of the blog! Get your name out there and make sure others can get in touch with you if they are interested in your insights.
8. BONUS TIP - HAVE FUN WITH THE BLOG!
- This is my favorite tip because we all need to just hang loose sometimes you know?

Debbie also emphasized that better blogs come from good writing and that the corporate world is in dire need for good writing. I think these tips are some great things to keep in mind when starting a blog. What do all of you think? Would you change or add something?

Update on Corporate Blogging Study

2006-04-21T11:35:00.000-04:00

Just wanted to provide a quick update on our corporate blogging study. The students have conducted all 20 interviews (thanks to all the corporate bloggers who participated -- we'll be following up with a more personal thank you in the near future) and transcribed at least one of them.

We began our initial thematic analysis of the interviews as a class, and then John Cass and I will be going through in more detail.

Students also wrote a reflection essay critiquing their own interview skills and commenting on what they felt the three most important themes were. Now that classes have ended I am in the process of reading and grading their essays.

We'll post additional updates as we go along!

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corporate blogging interviewing

Blogging - Essential to Your Career?

2006-04-19T21:55:00.000-04:00

While working on my own personal job search on Bostonworks.com I came accross an article entitled "Blogs 'Essential' to a Good Career." The article basically gives the opinion of Ben Day, a man who essentially says that he "blogged his way into a career as a high-earning software consultant while maintaining the freedom to schedule frequent jam sessions and performances as a keyboard player." Ben feels that blogging is something that every person needs to do in order to get a successful job.

Ben reports that by starting a blog revolving around your profession or a career that you wish to have will show employers your dedication, the fact that you know what you are doing and that you know what your field involves. He says that employers regularly Google prospective employees and if a professional blog comes up on the search you will have a much higher chance at getting an interview or a job then someone who has nothing come up when Googled. Think about it...if you were being Googled by a prospective employer would you rather your myspace come up or a professional blog on the position you are after?

Ben then lists and describes eight reasons why blogging will help your career:
1. Blogging creates a network.
2. Blogging can get you a job.
3. Blogging is great training.
4. Blogging helps you move up quickly.
5. Blogging makes self-employment easier.
6. Blogging provides more oppurtuinities.
7. Blogging could be your big break.
8. Blogging makes the world a better place.
Check out the article at http://bostonworks.boston.com/news/articles/2006/04/16/blogs_essential_to_a_good_career/

I found this article to be especially interesting because after all we have done on blogging in class I still did not ever think about starting my own. I just felt that I personally wouldn't benefit from it and that it was only something that was effective in a corporate setting. But if having a blog could be something that puts me ahead of someone else in terms of getting a job that it is something that I would definitly try. What is there to lose? What do you think?

Blog as branding tool

2006-04-19T15:31:00.000-04:00

I was reading Janet Johnson's blog over at Marqui and she spoke about "You as a Brand". I was thinking about it and wouldn't that just fit perfectly into the blog? I want to take it a step further than Janet did and suggest that big corporations that rely heavily on branding must focus extensively on the language they use in their blogs. Extreme examples always demonstrate things easiest. When you think about it, we've spoken about this in class several times. Blogs for companies like Adobe and Microsoft most likely rely on complicated, technological language because this reflects their brand as a leading technology company. A company like Starbucks would use coffee related vocabulary integrated into the individual's blog. Companies like Nike and Reebok whose brand focuses on an athletic lifestyle would utilize fun, easy going vocabulary.

Maybe what we should have asked the corporate bloggers is how they utilize language to reflect the brand of their company. Because its easy to see in these examples I've suggested, it'd be much more interesting to see how it plays out in average companies. In my interview, Janet mentioned that corporate blogs inevitably become more personalized as the writer becomes more comfortable writing. We debated this in class, but perhaps what's not in such contention is whether the language eventually aligns with the company brand. What do you all think?

The "Splogsplosion"

2006-04-18T14:23:00.000-04:00

What is all this I hear about spam on blogs? In an interview with my corporate blogger she expressed concern over the amount of spam on blogs. She said that she could not allow trackbacks on her corporate blog because spam will take over. This is a huge issue because trackbacks are a great way to build relationships among bloggers and ultimately pinpoint the best blogs.

Since none of us are very familiar with blogs I thought it would be worth it to mention the “splogsplosion” which took place in October 2005. I was surfing blogs to see what they had to say about spam, or, “splog.” I stumbled across a post by Arvind Katoch called “SPLOG: Latest Blogging Spam.” He explains exactly what happened when splogs took over the ever so popular, Blogger.

Splogs are designed so that they basically alter search engine results. People will have a splog or, a fake blog full of advertisements. Once someone clicks on the trackback or link to the fake blog, the author will get paid by the advertisers and will also move up in the search engine rankings. Outrageous! This means that the bloggers get paid every time someone clicks on the advertisements, however, the reader does not know they are advertisements, and not blogs, until after they click on it.

Katoch explains that search engines such as Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft are suffering because they appear less credible. There are many software programs that have been released to try and combat this problem. However, as the corporate blogger I interviewed mentioned, the hackers just seem to keep breaking through the system. It seems as though splogs are a major epidemic in the blogosphere.

I’m not sure how up to date this is, however, I think this is a huge problem with blogs. I mean, bloggers can’t even take advantage of the search engine rankings because they can get clogged with splog. Why does this have to be abused? Blogs are a good thing that people should take advantage of to get their word out to a large audience. It seems there will always be those who abuse their rights. What do you all think?

Baby Boomer Bloggers

2006-04-16T22:19:00.000-04:00

In class last week we had a conversation on what we would say if we were asked about blogging. Many students replied that our parents and other "older people" that we knew barely knew how to check email let alone start a blog. I agreed with my fellow students until I stumbled upon an article in my local newspaper which completely contradicts our ideas. In an article entitled "Gotta Blog" by Carol Scibelli from Long Island's Newsday the topic of baby boomers blogging is addressed. http://www.newsday.com/business/custom/retirement/ny-act2spd4702928apr15,0,6422729.story.

Carol tells her own story of how she came to begin blogging. She is a member of the baby boomers as many of our parents are and she is typing and clicking her way into the blogosphere. Carol first began a blog to show pictures and stories of her grandchildren. She started a blog entitled www.Grandma-Boomers.blogspot.com and her blogging and reading of other blogs has become an "addictive passion." Carol goes on to explain how blogging has help her to come together with others that she grew up with in Queens and Flushing, NY which is the location that many of the Long Island Baby Boomers were raised. She also finds that blogging has led her to a whole new life on the internet that she never knew existed.

I wonder if this is something that will continue? Will my parents become addicted to blogs and post information about me on their blogs? Is it a good thing that this generation is getting into blogging? I think we should all check with our parents about this topic. Many student's parents might actually be tricking their children into thinking they are not familiar with blogs but who knows, they could have a whole blog out there with pictures of you on it and you don't even know!

War of the Blogs

2006-04-11T14:06:00.000-04:00

Think back to the beginning of our blogging studies. Remember the Cluetrain Manifesto and the 95 Theses? Well there is also what seems to be a continuation of the Cluetrain’s message in the book Naked Conversations by Robert Scobel and Shel Israel. I’m not sure if any of you have found the chance, but the first chapter of the Cluetrain Manifesto is available on-line and I would encourage you all to read it. The writing style and language of the authors is both clever and entertaining, check it out at Cluetrain Manifesto, Chapter 1. The main point of the Cluetrain and of Naked Conversations is that markets are basically conversations. Blogging provides a forum for these conversations where consumers are connected to employees in the corporations.

In a column written by John Naughton at The Observer on-line,“Amazon may live to rue naked aggression against blogging,"Naughton describes what happened when a skeptical Amazon employee joined in the blogging discussion. Recently, Amazon invited the authors of Naked Conversations, which advocates corporate blogging, to join Amazon employees in a luncheon discussion.

In the discussion Werner Vogels, who is the chief technology officer at Amazon, allegedly started questioning the authors in a very direct, critical, and almost “rude” tone. As Naughton describes, Vogels asked questions mainly about how a blog would benefit a corporation financially. He asked about the ROI, or, return on investments. Scobel and Israel express this idea of blogs as forums for discussions about corporations. Rather than focus on the money that blogs can potentially generate, they focus on the relationships that form between consumers and companies. Could it be that perhaps Amazon is just not the right kind of company to blog?

According to Scobel and Israel if companies have not started blogging they: “won't know what people are saying about you. You can't learn from them, and they won't come to see you as a sincere human who cares about your business and your reputation.” This is just one of Scobel and Israel’s points that express how the blogosphere is one of, if not the best, form of two-way communication for corporations and consumers. Apparently, Vogels could not be convinced. I think the authors of Naked Conversations have a great point here in that it's important to know what is being said about your company. Being able to comment on such blogs or defend your image, is just one of the benefits to companies who are a part of the blogosphere.

As we discussed in class, I decided to check out John Moore’s blog called “Brand Autopsy,” to see how the dialogue between Amazon and the authors of the book panned out on the blogosphere. In his post entitled “Wretched Conversations,” Moore outlines the “he said, she said” argument between Werner Vogels and Scobel. Basically, what Vogels says is that Amazon always sets a high standard and that’s why they are so critical of the blogging concept for Amazon. He goes on to say that he does not feel that blogs should be “institutionalized” by Amazon just because everyone else is launching them. I think this is a good point I mean, blogging is quickly gaining popularity. Could it be that blogging is just going to end up being another regular marketing tactic that companies employ?

Wow… as I finish going through the posts, I agree with Moore. This really is a "he said, she said" war on the web. However, I think it’s a really great example for us as students learning about corporate blogging. Here is Amazon, contemplating the decision to blog. Ironically, we are in class interviewing successful bloggers about their decisions to start blogging, how perfect! The thought process of both the authors of Naked Conversations and Vogels of Amazon are so clearly outlined.

One more note on our class discussion: Take a look at these blogs and interpret the personalities, they really stand out! What do you all think?

Terms We Learned and Their Relevance to Blogging

2006-04-09T22:55:00.000-04:00

In my last post, I mentioned the thought that any company can blog as long as they have the right corporate culture and the right personal to blog. This made me think of all the terms we learned in the first half of the semester. It seems to me that many of them are relevant to blogging. These are things that could be considered essential for a company to have in order to blog.

First off, there’s automatic responsibility. This occurs when an individual within an organization assumes responsibility for fixing an error or completing a task even though they weren’t assigned the task simply because they feel an overriding personal obligation to the overall well being of the company/assignment. This could be an important thing to have in an individual who is posting. If a reader posts an inappropriate comment on another’s post, a person with automatic responsibility would take action on the matter even if it weren’t within their jurisdiction. This kind of behavior is good for a multi-person blog.

Another term is organizational identification. Simply put, a person relates to the company they work for strongly. They see themselves as part of the larger collective. It is a part of their identity. This is the type of person you want for a blog- to a degree. You want a person who can relate, and tell the consumer about the company, but you don’t want a person so blind they cannot see it’s flaws. There needs to be a balance of accolades and constructive criticism on a blog. It needs to seem human.

Next is concertive control. This is when the employees collaborate for rules and norms. People work as a team in concert with each other. This is true not only for a multi-person blog, but a corporate blog by only one person. Even if one person is blogging, it’s highly unlikely that their posts are concerned only with them. Through concertive control, there would be certain standards for blogging imposed on the blogger by his teammates. This would make the moderating of a blog easier.

We discussed ethics as well, and that is self-explanatory as to why that is important in blogging.

The last idea that I’m going to discuss is that of individual versus system responsibility. Mark Mair’s stance:
1) What you like to hear isn’t always what you need to know.
2) Dissent doesn’t always equal disloyalty.
These thoughts are germane to blogging as well, especially the second statement. This relates back to what I said under organizational identification as well as what LauraO5 said in her post below: you need to have the bad with the good. However, just because someone is exposing a negative thing does not mean they are disloyal to the company. They are just not oblivious to its downsides, which is essential to continued growth.

I’m sure there are more things from the first semester that relate. What else can you think of?

Blogging... and NASA?

2006-04-09T20:58:00.000-04:00

In the first half of this class, we studied NASA, and its communication flaws that led to the Challenger and Columbia disasters. We learned that as a result of these tragedies, NASA has predictably lost credibility with the public. This is due to a loss of the normalization of risk when the cultural mitosis occurred.

For those who aren't familiar with NASA's history, at one point NASA had a culture entirely devoted to the engineer. Mistakes not only happened, they were expected. People had a common goal in mind, and most were operating on the same level. A cultural mitosis transpired when the Apollo Program became a perogative. The prospect of the Apollo Program doubled the tasks. As a result, the NASA team had to change its organizational structure. It grew by mitosis. There became two cultures: the engineering and the bureaucratic. This split spiraled into two opposing viewpoints and communication standards. The bureaucrats grew in strength and redirected the mission of NASA. It went from focusing on the safety and reliability to the cost and time concerned with each project. This played a large role in the Challenger incident, and years later, the Columbia .

The Columbia happened only 3 years ago. Many of my classmates and I question whether they've really changed since then. When we were asked to examine the NASA website, most of us commented on what we thought appeared to be synthetic sincerity on their site. We were overwhelmed by a barrage of links leading to accomplishments or goals. We were sent there to find NASA's information on the accidents. All of us found it difficult to find. NASA had buried offsite. Good luck finding the link to it on your own (this is a challenge for all of you)!

So, now that I've brought you through some of NASA's past, and their current situation, I pose the question: Would a blog be good for NASA?

Right now, it doesn't appear that NASA even has a main forum board. They have one maintained by a college in their Columbia page, but that's all I've been able to find. Would it benefit NASA's credibility to have a blog?

The person I interviewed, Jeremy, told me there is not one type of company that can blog. Any company can as long as they have the right the right corporate culture, and the right type of person. The right type of person will have honesty, skills, passion and thick skin. Does NASA have the right person/people for the task? Do they even have the right culture? Or, if not, could the blog direct and influence the culture toward an improvement?

I don't have the answers to these questions, but I think it is something worth exploring for NASA. It could potentially renew the public trust. It could also backfire. Perhaps, a forum would be better. Either way, there seems to be a lack of discourse between NASA and the people.

"When You Take Your Pigs to Market, You Have to Tell People About Them"

2006-04-06T15:04:00.001-04:00

Everywhere I turn these days, I hear something new about blogging. Even my mom has called me to tell me now that I’ve talked to her about blogging, she is noticing it on the internet and it being discussed on the news. Even driving down the parkway I’ve seen huge billboards that reads “BLOGGING” with a small AT&T logo at the bottom. Blogging is a hot new trend in not only corporate world, but also the entertainment industry. The television industry seems to be hopping in the blogging boat. USA TODAY, published an article April 5th called, “TV Goes to Blogs: Shows Add Extra Information as Treat for Fans.” The article talks about how not only do popular TV shoes like Grey’s Anatomy, The OC, and The Unit, have fan websites about the shows, but now have blogs. Some of these blogs are written by the actual characters on the show while others are written by the producer or director.

Stacy McKee, a Grey's staff writer, writes a blog about the Nurse's Station, which is a blog written from Nurse Debbie's point of view. Chris Van Dusen, who is the assistant to creator Shonda Rhimes, writes Joe's Blog, done from character Joe the bartender's perspective and there is a third blog that is written by whoever writes that week's episode. McKee says, "to have the fly-on-the-wall character who sees them at work and then in the evening — a similar voice as the fans' but a little more information. It's like gossiping with your friends when you read it." Grey’s blog has been very successful for the TV show, which leading to a book being published about the characters used in the blogs.

I found it funny that even the OC has their own blog that is written in the voice of character Summer Roberts. This blog talks about what you should wear for the upcoming season, or what shoes you just need to have. However, not all of these TV blogs are written in the voice of a TV character. Eric Haney, executive producer of The Unit, uses his blog to give his fans a backstage pass into the show, his goal is to give fans, a "little inside peek" at the show. "Everyone wants to feel like you're sitting down to talk to them." I thought it was interesting how he compared himself to a low-tech dinosaur in the article. The blogging technology has made not only huge corporations start blogging, but even TV producers. He said, “I thought it was pretty funny that we needed to have a blog, but I'm one of the owners. When you take your pigs to market, you have to tell people about them." I think he is right saying you have to be open to talk about what you are doing, no matter if it is a huge corporation or a television show. Do you think a lot of producers, executives, and top management feel as though they are “low-tech dinosaurs” and just can’t understand blogging? If more people in the industry were blogging savvy, would TV ratings go up or attract a louder fan base?

How Does a Blogger Create Credibility?

2006-04-02T20:29:00.000-04:00

So everyone knows that a good blog would have a credible blogger. But how does one build credibility without bragging about oneself? On a Microsoft blog post, the author explains that she hates when bloggers talk themselves up, just to sound good to the world. Do you think this is necessary when blogging? Do you have to brag about every little thing you accomplished in your industry for others to take you seriously? How do you build credibility without sounding like you are trying to sell yourself?

Heather feels it is through being authentic in your blogging. I agree with this, and I'm sure you all do too, after discussing authenticity in class. It is this authenticity that attracts viewers to your blog, and humanizes it. Letting your personality show through the blog is so important to credibility, as Heather explains.

Being authentic is not about telling people what you are great at, but what you aren't so great at. People are so afriad of others seeing their weaknesses, that sometimes for people it is hard to let their personality show through. To go along with this theory, I liked how Heather listed many of her weaknesses to show people that she is human. This is so important in the recruiting industry, because so many people think that recruiters are just out for the money and do not care about the candidates' careers. Having a blog, and building their credibility through their personality is crucial in the authenticity aspect of blogging.

Getting the Word Out Through Blogger Outreach: "Marqui Post on Fear of the Blogosphere"

2006-03-31T09:21:00.000-05:00

I received an e-mail recently from Janet Johnson over at Marqui's World about her post entitled "Fear of the Blogosphere". She had recently talked about blogging and social networks at a conference on Media Literacy & Teen Health. Some people who attended her talk (educators and social service people) experienced a lot of anger, fear, and frustration when they found out what Janet's perspective was about who is responsible, at least in part, for some of the horror stories involving social networking sites like MySpace and Live Journal.

Janet felt that parents bore some responsibility for these horror stories because they weren't knowledgeable enough about the dangers posed by their children posting too much personal, specific information online, and opening themselves up to predators. So she felt like she wanted to make amends by spreading the word about the seriousness of the situation. Specifically, she wants people to know:

- Kids are already out there. They're already engaging with their friends in the blogosphere.
- And Bobbie Eisenstock's rules of the road should be available to every parent wondering what to do about it.

Pass it on. Blogs and social networks are not going to go away. So let's figure out how to help each other deal with it. And let's show how the blogosphere can do some very good work.

I write about this on our class blog not only to help Janet spread the word but also to cite this as an instace of "blogger outreach" -- where one blogger reaches out to other bloggers in order to build a relationship and share ideas. How companies are using blogger outreach is one aspect we are interested in, among many other things, as part of our corporate blogging study.

How often and in what ways do you or your company use blogger outreach?

Blogger Queries

2006-03-22T19:31:00.000-05:00

After much class discussion, a posting by Dr. Carl, and response/comment from Tim Jackson of Masiguy, I have yet another resource for why people should have corporate blogs. “Benefits of Blogging” is a post and article that I found while researching one of my interviewees, Tery Spataro. Definitely check out the posting, which also gives practical examples of different types of blogs such as product blogs, and consultant blogs. Once I figure out how to trackback, I will give Aliza Pilar Sherman proper credit for her article.

Walmart's Blogging Deception

2006-03-20T14:45:00.000-05:00

I’m not sure if any of you listen to National Public Radio (NPR) but, did you know they have created a blog? NPR. I find it a great way to catch up on news stories I couldn’t listen to. It also gives listeners who could not call in a forum to post their commentary as well. As I was browsing the NPR blog which I should mention is called “Mixed Signals,” I came across a blog about Walmart. Since Walmart has been a reoccurring topic in class I thought it may be of some interest to you all. Visit here for the story and to listen to the actual commentary from the radio, Listen to the Interview!

NPR interviews Bob Moon, a regular on the show “The Marketplace,” about Walmart and blogs. More specifically, how Walmart has recently started fighting back criticisms of how they treat their workers, providing low pay and only minimal benefits. Since the public claim of Walmart’s poor treatment of employees, bloggers have taken the initiative of creating blogs that actually speak out against Walmart. In this interview with NPR, Bob Moon mentions a few of them, one of which is called Wake Up Walmart.

In an effort to defend their public image, Walmart turned to the internet where some bloggers are defending their image. At second look, The New York Times discovered that those blog postings were actually written by Public Relations firms for Walmart. Bob Moon describes how Walmart is using the blogosphere to tell their side of the story. Since there are blogs against Walmart is it so wrong that Walmart responded? Mr. Moon comments that Walmart is just adjusting with the times by going on the internet to defend their image. He goes on to say that the postings do not say who has written them. In addition, Bob Moon mentions one of the postings that “takes direct aim at Target,” one of Walmart’s competitors. Is this ethical? Walmart’s defense is that they do not compensate the bloggers in any way and if journalists are not required to reveal their identity on blogs, neither are they. Walmart says they will continue to blog!

As we discussed in class, it seems as though Walmart is using the blogosphere to try and influence public opinion. Personally, I think this is very manipulative. The source of a piece of information is crucial in determining its credibility. Once bloggers found out that these posts were actually from PR firms for Walmart, the odds are, their credibility plummeted. Or course bloggers aren’t going to bad mouth Walmart if they still work directly with them. I found this a very interesting discussion of how Walmart used blogs to try and repair their image. Looking through these different blogs is a great way to learn more about the dialogue between blogs and how they influence public opinion.

Telling the Truth vs. Telling a Lie

2006-03-18T20:13:00.000-05:00

As I was reading through the New York Times I came across an article that discussed the rights, protections, and consequences of whistle-blowers called Bipartisan Support Emerges For Federal Whistle-Blowers. The topic of being able to speak truth to power and blow the whistle on an organization has seemed to be in the spotlight since scandals like Enron and World Com have surfaced. Having the ability to speaking truth to power is not only a vital part of huge corporations, but even government institutions like the Army. Both Republicans and Democrats are leading the defense of individuals who are speaking truth to power, in particular whistle-blowers. Representative Christopher Shays, Republican of Connecticut argues that “it’s absolutely essential that we have a system that allows people to speak out about abuses, especially in the national security realm.” It is surprising that so many corporations, managers, and individuals look down upon those who are speaking truth to power. Shouldn’t an individual be praised for pointing out intolerable evils in an organization rather then being punished? Representative Curt Weldon of Pennsylvania would agree with individuals being persecuted and “whose lives were ruined, who were threatened and intimidated because they simply wanted to tell the truth.” Shouldn’t whistle-blowers, especially when human lives are at stake, be protected by law? When these whistle-blowers are punished aren’t we just encouraging the intolerable evils to carry on? It is like rewarding the liar.

Advanced Organizational Communication

2006-03-16T16:26:00.000-05:00

Advanced Organizational Communication

One Last Look at NASA

Although our class is at the beginning of a new section and we are passed all this NASA business I thought it would be ok to visit it one last time. Upon looking through various news sites this week I found an interesting article dealing with NASA. Apparently, earlier this month the "DAWN Mission" was planned to go into space and explore two large aesteroids in the solar system, but it was abruptly cancelled. The cancellation of the mission has been credited to cost overruns and technical issues surrounding the spacecraft. At first the launch was indefinitly postponed but within the last two days a new article surfaced stating that the launch is officially canceled. It seems that the managers of the mission had been ordered to stop work on the Dawn last fall when an independent review team assessed the project (penetration anyone?). In the past few days more articles have been written which provide limited information about the status of things surrounding this launch. I am interested to see how NASA handles this situation. Did they cancel the launch primarily due to technical problems but wanted to cover it up by saying that it was too costly because of the disasters of the past? Also, why aren't news stories such as this given more attention by the media? Is it just because a disaster did not occur? In the articles there are many quotes from those who worked first hand on the launch and are understandably upset that their work, which they were committed to for a decade, is dropped suddenly. What does this say about their organization identification towards NASA?
I have included the sites to each article I looked at and would be interested in what some of you think? The first one explains when the launch was put on hold, the second is when it was officially cancelled and the third examines a review of the cancellation. This was just something that I found interesting and hopefully more articles will surface in the future that might provide us with more information as to what is being done for the future of NASA.
http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/ap_060121_dawn_hold.html
http://www.space.com/news/060303_dawn_cancelled.html
http://www.space.com/news/060316_dawn_mission.html

Student Questions About Corporate Blogging

2006-03-16T11:26:00.000-05:00

For this past Tuesday's class students read the 95 Theses from the Cluetrain Manifesto and the Edelman/Intelliseek report "Talking from the Inside Out: The Rise of Employee Bloggers."

When students came to class I asked them to take out a blank sheet of paper and write down any questions they had about corporate blogging, either from the readings or anything else they wanted to know. We discussed a number of those questions in class, related to: the different types of corporate blogs, uses of corporate blogs, and how blogging might affect their career paths.

They also had a number of questions that we didn't have time to discuss so I told them we would could discuss them on Friday when John Cass from Backbone Media guest lectures on his study "Corporate Blogging: Is It Worth the Hype?"

I would also invite anyone in the blogosphere to offer their perspective on these questions as well. In having such a dialogue I hope we can address some of the so-called "Blog Anemia in Academica" ;-)**

Here are the questions we didn't get a chance to discuss:

- Who reads corporate blogs? What do we know about the audience of a specific corporate blog? How can you find out this information?

- How do you market a corporate blog? Is there anything special a company should do?

- For companies who have fired corporate bloggers (like Google, Friendster, Delta, Waterstone's, etc.) how are they managing corporate blogging now? For example, what is the status of the legal cases? What are their new policies or guidelines?

- How do blogs by executives compare to blogs from employees at lower levels in the hierarchy? Are they similar or different in terms of content, style, etc.?

- What are the societal effects of corporate blogs? Specifically, what is the relationship between corporate blogging and the "digital divide," if any?

- How are some of the practical issues of blogs managed? For example, does the phenomenon of information overload that applies to e-mail also apply to corporate blogging?

- What were the effects of the Cluetrain Manifesto on corporate blogging?

** If people are interested in blogging and academia be sure to check out the 2003 Chronicle of Higher Education article on "Scholars who blog", the "scholar bloggers" at Crooked Timber, and the 2006 HigherEdBlogCon conference.

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corporate blogging

Word-of-mouth marketing in action

2006-03-14T23:39:00.000-05:00

I had completely forgotten that I had been exposed to “word-of-mouth” marketing before, but my memory was refreshed when I rediscovered a very relevant website yesterday while deleting most of my thousands of bookmarks in Internet Explorer. As I was poking through concert reviews and other random, unrelated posts on my favorite musician’s message board a few months ago, I came across one post that mentioned a person participating in “BzzCampaign.” Never having seen or heard of this term before, I entered the post and visited the website it referred to. BzzCampaigns, which are run through BzzAgent.com, are word-of-mouth marketing campaigns which “[let] you experience a product or service first hand either via a product sample, coupon or other means… after you form an opinion about the product and spread the word to others, you go to BzzAgent.com and submit BzzReports detailing your Bzz activities. BzzReports can feature positive and/or negative Bzz, so long as the Bzz is honest!” Basically, companies submit their products to BzzAgent, and BzzAgent sends samples or coupons to unpaid “volunteer brand evangelists” to test the products and spread the “buzz” about them to people they talk to. The volunteers write up reports about their experiences using and discussing the product with others, and submit them to the site.

I bookmarked this site before because I thought it was interesting (and because I happen to like free samples), but I had never bothered to sign up for it. When I came across it yesterday, I decided to give it a shot and see if I could learn more about it by signing up. The site contains a ton of information, links, and quotes about word-of-mouth marketing. Anyone can sign up to be a BzzAgent, and participation in any campaign is voluntary. However, when you register, you have to fill out a survey with details about your demographics and some of your communication and media habits (i.e. how many people you talk to per average day, how many hours you spend online per average day, etc.), so that the site can refer you to campaigns that target similar demographics or characteristics as your own. There are a few training programs on the site to teach new Bzzers the ropes, and to allow them to earn points, which can be accumulated and redeemed for prizes like music, movies, and gift certificates. Points are earned mostly through submitting reports, however. The BzzReports are supposed to detail the process of spreading your opinion of a given product to other people, and the more detailed and creative your report is, the more points you’ll earn. However, I couldn't help but think: how many people just make up detailed and creative stories to receive the products and prizes without having to do any work? Because all of this action and communication is done through the internet, are people really spreading a “buzz,” or are they just pretending to because there is no one really monitoring them? Although people volunteer to participate, there’s always the possibility that they aren’t being honest about their “work,” so how can anyone be sure that services like this are fulfilling their purpose? I’m sure if a person strongly likes or dislikes a product, they may tell a few friends or family members about it, but how many people are going to go out of their way to spread the word about it without monetary compensation for doing so? The purpose of this service is similar to "rep" and "street team" programs for musicians, but in my opinion, the people who participate in their favorite band's promotional team are more likely to spread the word about their music because they are passionate about it; with BzzAgent, people are promoting products that they have little experience with, and they probably could care less about the product's or company's success. I think that BzzAgent is a great idea, because word-of-mouth marketing is proven to be a successful tactic, but the credibility of the information the site receives from its volunteers raises a lot of doubt, at least in my mind.

Also, ironically, while I was writing this post and looking over the site again, one of our own Dr. Carl’s quotes popped up:
"WOM takes place within a context of everyday, routine, relational intereactions.... [E]ffective WOM and buzz marketing is not rooted in the marketing of a particular brand, product, or service, but rather is based in the everyday relationships and conversations of people discussing other matters." -Walter Carl, Northeastern University Professor, May 2005

Bye Bye Privacy...the new blogging trend

2006-03-13T16:51:00.000-05:00

In America it is often deemed rude to ask someone what their salary is, or how much money they have in a savings account. Most people feel downright uncomfortable telling others how much they earn. People pay financial planners the big bucks to help them out confidentially in reaching their financial goals.

Well, say goodbye to that folks. MyMoneyBlog.com is one of many on-line web logs where bloggers have been going for “an open-source approach to finance.” I found out about this new trend in blogging in the March 6, 2006 issue of BusinessWeek. The only thing kept secret on blogs like these are the user's real names. At this particular blog, bloggers “list financial information down to the dollar in retirement, brokerage and savings accounts.” Why would someone be inclined to do this? Well, the article follows a 27 year old, named Jonathan. He has some plans for financial freedom in mind and would like some advice on how to reach his goals. So, he posts on MyMoneyBlog.com and many people post comments and advice. Other users respond to his blog--they recommend investment options, how to get out of credit card debt, etc.

Jonathan says that whenever he comes up with new ways to make or save money he posts it for others to benefit from. Is the age of hiring financial planners out the window? Are we really going to rely on complete strangers to give us financial advice? The users of this website are in the age range of 22-35. These people are internet-savvy, but how far can you push it? This generation that’s writing in these blogs is one with hefty student loans in a tight job market. These bloggers are described as “do it yourself” people who want financial independence. But they certainly aren't experts.

For many of these people, managing money has become a sort of hobby. They offer up advice on which savings accounts offer the best promotions and which credit cards have the best incentives. People can post financial scenarios and receive multiple comments and ideas from other bloggers, giving them helpful advice on what to do with their money (or lack of). These bloggers are well aware that these are complete strangers and take discretion. They say reading other people’s personal finance blogs can be helpful in that they begin to learn from other people’s mistakes by reading through stranger’s financial trials and tribulations.

One group of financial fanatics in Oregon launched NetworthIQ.com, a social networking website for financial fanatics alike. You can create a profile based on your worth and then compare and contrast yourselves with others. Then they track financial progress through blogs.

Can these types of blogs really be beneficial when you don’t even know who is giving you advice? Are multiple opinions from complete strangers actually helpful? I’d like to hear if any of you guys heard about this new blogging phenomenon, or if you know someone whose done it before.

A Few More Bloggers Needed For Corporate Blogging Study

2006-03-10T16:35:00.000-05:00

So far we have 11 bloggers signed up for our corporate blogging study. Our goal is to reach 20 bloggers. If you are interested in participating in the project contact John Cass at Backbone Media (his email is john AT backbonemedia DOT com).

The purpose of the study is to better understand what makes a successful corporate blog, and in the process help a company to determine if they should blog and how they should blog. Students in the class will learn about corporate blogging, learn interviewing skills, and then interview two corporate bloggers with a view to determining how the blogger's company started blogging and what makes their blog successful.

Thanks to all the bloggers who have signed up so far and for the warm support from Toby Bloomberg (Diva Marketing) and others :-)

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corporate blogging interviewing

How Do You Record Conversations With Skype?

2006-03-10T10:19:00.000-05:00

I recently read a post on Steve Rubel's blog about how he recorded his Social Media Tour interviews using Skype.

Does anyone know how to do this?

I tried using Sound Recorder (the freebie that comes with Windows) but it only picks up my side of the conversation when I use headphones.

As our class is preparing for our Corporate Blogging Study I was thinking that students could use Skype for the interviews with the corporate bloggers (assuming the corporate bloggers also used Skype) rather than paying long distance phone charges and using the old-fashioned tape recorder.

Please comment with any suggestions or e-mail me at w.carl AT neu.edu

Thanks!

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corporate blogging skype interviewing

A Culture of Fear

2006-03-05T20:50:00.000-05:00

While reading the March 6, 2006 issue of Business Week, I came across an extremely interesting article. “Renovating Home Depot: Skip the touchy-feely stuff. The big-box store is thriving under CEO Bob Nardelli’s military-style rule,” is the title and I think it speaks for itself. If you have the time and the cash ($4.95), I would urge each of you to go pick up this issue and read this article closely. This analysis of Home Depot’s management style and culture has many aspects in it that are closely related to concepts we need to understand, including: organizational climate, speaking truth to power and organizational identification.

In December 2000, Bob Nardelli was appointed CEO of Home Depot. His mission was to completely change the decentralized, entrepreneurial business that developed under founders Bernie Marcus and Arthur Blank. Nardelli implemented a workplace climate that was to “look and feel like an army.” The military became his management model. Nardelli began recruiting members of the military to work at Home Depots across the nation. Around 13% of Home Depot’s 345,000 employees have military experience, including Nardelli. His plan has been to import “ideas, people and platitudes from the military.” This is the way he planned to reshape the world’s third-largest retailer to become a centralized organization.

Nardelli believes in building a disciplined workplace—one that follows orders, can operate in high-pressure environments, and execute with high standards. He believes in a command-and control organization. I’m not sure about you, but this surely doesn’t sound like any organization I’ve ever worked in. Can a management style like this work? Granted, 13% of the workers are from the military but what about the other 87%? The new organizational climate has led to a double in profits and an average annual growth rate of 12%. These numbers are impressive but what about employee morale? The majority of workers aren’t militaristic. They didn’t know anything about military style and rules. Many of these workers have labeled the new Home Depot workplace as a “Culture of Fear.” How are employees supposed to identify with a culture that treats employees as troops and labels them the “Aprons”?

Some of these are ex-workers, who describe a demoralized staff and culture of fear among workers at Home Depot. In this type of environment I am sure that there is no Speaking Truth to Power. With such a chain of command style, employees would most likely live in fear of their superiors, especially the 87% who are not familiar with this militaristic style of management.

Nardelli started out at Home Depot with no previous retail experience. He had been employed at GE, where he also was known for heavy military recruiting. He has been described as relentless and demanding. He starts the workday at the crack of dawn and considers Saturdays and Sundays to be part of the work week. He even implements military literature for employees to motivate themselves to “out-think your enemy.”
Although Home Depot does have some stiff competition with Lowe’s, I’m not too sure if this is the correct mentality retail workers need to have in order to be successful employees.

Nardelli has created a culture where employees are constantly being watched and kept track of. Their work is quantified and they are expected to follow his rules with absolutely no deviation. Former managers have described the workplace as “a culture so paralyzed with fear that they didn’t worry about whether they would be terminated, but when.” Also, past employees said Home Depot was beginning to feel much “like a factory.” In a climate such as this, it is hard to believe that their profits have grown. Can anyone shed some light on why they think this type of workplace could be successful? Is a management style like this necessary and suitable to a workplace such as Home Depot?

Where in the world is Wernher von Braun?

2006-03-03T18:40:00.000-05:00

I know you are all sitting on the edge of your seats waiting for the answer to this question before you head off on your spring break extravaganzas. Well, you'll be glad to know I found the answer to what happened to von Braun after NASA. After reading through Wikipedia's entry, I found the answer I know you were all searching for relentlessly.

As it turns out, von Braun was relocated in 1970 to Washington, DC. There, he became NASA's Deputy Associate Administrator for Planning. He only stayed for two years though. After the Apollo mission, von Braun decided his time at NASA was finished. He realized his vision and NASA's goals just weren't the same anymore and decided to retire from NASA in June, 1972.

His career in space was not over yet though. He became vice-president of Fairchild Industries in Maryland. There, he developed the National Space Institute, which is known today as the National Space Society. By 1976, von Braun became scientific consultant to Lutz Kayser, the CEO of OTRAG; and a member of the Daimler-Benz board of directors.

In 1976, von Braun's career came to a screeching halt when he learned he had cancer. He retired from his posts. Sadly, on June 16, 1977, von Braun died in Virginia at the age of 65. In memory of von Braun, the von Braun civic center was built in Huntsville in 1975. Hopefully, there will be more innovative thinkers like von Braun, to lead NASA in their future endeavors. With the launch of the Discovery in the upcoming months, let us hope that the practices von Braun instilled in NASA still have meaning to employees.

NASA Still Can't Get It Right

2006-03-02T14:53:00.000-05:00

I was reading the newspaper the other day, and my eyes couldn't help but leap to the words in a title stating, "House Panel Prods NASA for Improvement on Openness." As I know we are all too familiar with the communication failures NASA experienced in the Challenger and Columbia disasters, I thought it was very interesting to find a recent article criticizing yet again, their communication.

The story is featured in the February 17th edition of The New York Times and was written by Warren E. Leary and Andrew C. Revkin. I know its already March, but I didn't stumble upon the article until a few days ago! Regardless, the report examined how lawmakers from both the democratic and republican parties are urging NASA's leaders to improve the ways that the agency conveys scientific information to the public. The reason behind their notion is that negative reports have recently been filed about efforts made by the political appointees in the space agency's press office. The reports state that certain interviews have been restricted and news releases have been altered to appease the Bush administration in relation to policies on pollution, global warming, and other issues.

Dr. Michael D. Griffin, the administrator of NASA, said that agency emloyee's need to feel free to speak out, and that NASA was particularly concerned about openness because of the shuttle disasters of 1986 and 2003. In response, two actions are underway to hopefully eliminate these issues of openness. The first is that they plan to replace some of the agency's policies that date back to 1987, and the second is that senior administrators will heavily review the reports of communication troubles from NASA's research centers. But really, is this enough? I mean, it seems like the administration has traveled these roads before. They plan to look into the problems, but haven't the problems already been identified? To me, making some real changes and improvements seem to be the right courses of action.

Observing Automatic Responsibility

2006-03-02T11:07:00.000-05:00

After class on Tuesday, I went off to work at Routhier Placement. We had debated automatic responsibility, and I had felt that it is able to take place in organizations. When I was at work, I happened to notice it on numerous accounts. Now granted Routhier Placement is a fairly small organization, every single employee takes on the responsibility of others when needed. When I first started working there on my co-op, I was trained to do more than I was originally set out to do. I later learned that everyone in the organization had been trained just like me in order to be able to "hold the fort down" when needed.

So on Tuesday, I was sitting in my cubicle when I observed the first sign of automatic responsbility. The receptionist had stepped away from the front desk and the phone rang, and had continued to ring on multiple lines. Normally, I would just pick the phone up and answer it, but the President of the company, Tom Routhier, sat at the front desk and handled the calls. How many Presidents do you know that would take on the responsibilty of the receptionist?
Another instance when automatic responsbility occured was when a call had come in, with a woman that had an interest in a job placement. However, the person on the phone had a strong financial background, and because Routhier Placement specializes in legal placement, we did not have any job opportunities that would fit her. So instead of just hanging up, Hope, the receptionist, informed the office of the call and asked if anyone knew of anyother placement agencies. Rob, a recruiter, took the call and gave her the name and telephone number of any other agency that could help her out.

So I wonder, can automatic responsibility only occur in small, intimate organizations? I have never worked in a large organization before, so I am very curious. Does anyone have any experience in large corporations where they can give examples of automatic responibility occuring or not occuring?

Monday Notes in Action

2006-02-24T17:46:00.000-05:00

While conducting research for my organizational imperatives position essay, I encountered an article that mentions Monday Notes in a different setting. I thought you guys might find this interesting.

In the American Communication Journal’s Winter, 2003 issue, there was an article titled “A "Worldview" of Disaster: Organizational Sensemaking in a Wildland Firefighting Tragedy” by Gregory S. Larson. It mentions that the Monday Notes could be implemented to better deal with crisis situations.

The article addresses crisis situations, such as firefighting disasters. It suggests that crisis situations provide opportunities to study organizational decision making and provide lessons for organizational theory and practice. It focused mainly on accounts of a Colorado fire in 1994. One of the main points it talks about is that employees and managers need regular communication relationships with those people they might need to depend on in a crisis. For instance, the firefighter digging a fireline on a mountain in Colorado depends on the scientist studying the burning patterns of fuels in Montana or the weather forecaster predicting a cold front moving through California.

They also discuss that the discipline of regular communication forces individuals to consider other perspectives. They address the idea of when employees communicate only with people in their specialties, the odds of seeing the world only in terms of that specialized activity increase. It’s not practical for every wildland firefighter to have a daily conversation with the weather forecaster. But, something can be done to help both realize their interconnectedness in the process of fighting a fire.

They found that the routine of "Monday Notes" at NASA established a system of organizational communication. They realized that the notes focused on the status of various jobs throughout the organization. The notes were then reproduced and distributed to all. As a result, managers throughout the organization were better prepared to anticipate difficulties.

The article implies that employees would need to change who they communicate with in order for a system like Monday Notes to be implemented successfully. The firefighters would then feel comfortable, confident and supported in contacting the scientist he is depending on. If that sort of a supportive climate is not in place though, using a system like Monday Notes could ultimately be counterproductive because the information in the notes could be rendered useless if there is no trust between the two communicating. The firefighter and scientist would need to have a healthy climate where they have the same goals in mind, have support from their managers and give each other the credibility needed to trust the information being relayed. Then the Monday Notes can become a trustworthy communication system, as it once was at NASA.

Have you heard?

2006-02-21T21:29:00.000-05:00

Your own Professor Carl of Northeastern University is being recognized nationally in places such as The Wall St. Journal and Advertising Age, as well as Management Communication Quarterly for his research. The research, for those of you don’t know, is about “word-of-mouth” (WOM) marketing. Out today in the Northeastern Voice publication is a colorful article regarding the research he has been laboriously working on. So for those days when we didn’t have class, Dr. Carl has been sharing his research with the world. Reading the article, (which unfortunately was not availabe online yet from NU Voice, but can be picked up by students in those nifty NU newspaper shelves throughout campus), I discovered there is a Word-of-Mouth Marketing Association, as well as the implications of such marketing tactics. In terms of Organizational communications and this class WOM, informal networking would be a great channel to facilitate this advertising.

Reading through the article, I thought blogging definitely has a place within all of this, and sure enough, (although I would have been a little disappointed had Dr. Carl not thought of this already) there is a blog “to facilitate dialogue”: www.wom-study.blogspot.com

Furthermore, as I was reading the article, I thought to myself, “Hmm, could blogging become a new avenue for WOM advertising?” Once people develop a relationship or dialogue in a particular blog, wouldn’t it be a great space to share thoughts about products, brands etc? This could also become a dangerous space, since users are “anonymous”, the intentions of such agents could be suspect.

PS- word of the day: “serendipitous” a word used in the Voice article to describe Dr. Carl’s partnership with BzzAgent Inc.

Proven wrong!

2006-02-20T10:31:00.000-05:00

For once in class I thought I knew it all. I saw in the description for Chapter 9 that Thompkins was going to try to correlate organizational communications and Spiderman. Now first, you're listening to one of the biggest comic book geeks around; I did stand in line for 8 hours to see Batman Begins, have been spotted at national comic book conventions, and could explain the works of Loeb, Miller, and Quesada much more than I could Shakespeare, Fitzgerald, or Twain. So I'm reading through Chapter 9 and it gets to the much anticipated portion dealing with Spiderman, the movie.

How surprised was I when the chapter cited the actions of one Norman Osborne! I'm not trying to belittle the knowledge garnered from this example. It is a simple and clear demonstration how government pressure can lead to a shift in organizational culture; from creation, invention, and most importantly safety to schedules, deadlines, and ultimately bureaucracy. Here we see the absence of such crucial organizational concepts such as automatic responsibility, penetration, and Monday notes. It drove its well-intentioned leader and CEO to take radical action and inject himself with a poisonous syrum just to please his employers. Just like with NASA, we see that organizational communications can have disasterous results as he transforms into the Green Goblin and reaks terror to New York City.

Now that whole anecdote may be all well and good, but how could Tompkin be so blind? He must not have watched the whole film nor seen its succesful sequel, because he clearly forgot to mention the film's most famous (and in this case extremely relevant) quote from good ol' Uncle Ben; "With great power comes great responsibility." We can see how this anecdote applies to organizational communications. With Tompkin's discussion of Enron, Wal-Mart, Tyco, and the McWane corporation, he revealed the importance of speaking truth to power and individual accountability. The question of if these corporations are just a few "bad apples" or if its becoming a cultural issue shows the need for these concepts in today's organizational leaders. If these people can recognize the power they yield and respect the responsibility that they have, perhaps we wouldn't bear witness to so many organizational transgressions and corporate scandals. I believe this anecdote by ol' Uncle Ben is much more relevant and forecasting to organizational communications than the events of Norman Osborne. Maybe it's me trying to prove I should have been right but I thought bringing this up with a current Spiderman-mindset may be helpful to you all. Hope this helps.

Calling All Successful Corporate Bloggers! Invitation to Participate in Academic-Industry Research Collaboration

2006-02-13T14:58:00.000-05:00

The Advanced Organizational Communication class at Northeastern University is collaborating with John Cass from Backbone Media to better understand the reasons, conditions and factors it takes to make a successful blog, and in the process help a company to determine if they should blog and how they should blog. To this end students will interview several corporate bloggers with a view to determining how the blogger's company started blogging and what makes their blogs successful.

If you are interested in participating in the project contact John Cass at Backbone Media (his email is john AT backbonemedia DOT com) or you can contact Dr. Walter Carl (my email is w.carl AT neu DOT edu). When the students have transcribed the blogger interviews, Backbone Media will analyze the student interviews and publish edited highlights for inclusion in the study results. The students will learn from conducting the interviews and also publish posts about the interviews on our course blog.

Please note that there will be some initial qualifying questions to determine if the blogger will be included in the case studies.

The stamp above indicates this research project has been approved by Northeastern University's Division of Research Integrity.

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corporate blogging research

Why Blog at Work?

2006-02-12T20:33:00.000-05:00

I think I am with the rest of the class when it comes to knowing what a blog is. I have always knew what it was, but when I heard in class that people blog for work, I could not understand why. I have never heard of anyone having to post blog entries for work. Working for a placement agency, I have never seen "blogging" as part of the job description.

With my curiousity, I decided to ask around and find out who exactly is blogging for work. I decided to ask my brother Jon, who is a stock benefit consultant, if he blogs for work. He told me he doesn't blog himself, but he does in fact read one everyday. The blog he reads everyday is of "someone very important." He would not tell me who he is, and he also told me not to disclose the firm he works for. The reason Jon reads this blog is to get information on what the stock market is doing, and to receive the recent news regarding all the stocks Jon deals with. He is also getting this information from a different perspective, and not just what the charts are saying.

So then I asked Jon why he doesn't have a blog himself. He said he would if he had numerous people working for him. He said it would be good to have to keep people up to date constantly with what has been going on. For example, he could inform people when his clients were not happy, when they were happy, things to look for in the upcoming weeks, etc. He said up until he has a staff working for him, he will continue to read other blogs for his benefit.

After speaking with Jon, it became clear to me why people blog for work. I think it is a great way to keep communication flowing smoothly, and a great way to connect with people on all levels of the hierarchy.

Torino Conversations: How Coca-Cola Is Working With Blogs

2006-02-12T16:29:00.000-05:00

For students who are wondering how some companies are using blogs, or more accurately in the case of Coca-Cola, enabling blogging, learn about the Torino Conversations project. Coca-Cola invited six communication studies students from different countries to blog about their experiences at the Olympics (anyone jealous?).

Be sure to click on the "About This Project" link on the home page to learn how Coca-Cola describes the purpose of the project and why they are funding it. In your opinion, what benefit does Coca-Cola get from this?

Hat tip to Customer World

Morton-Thiokol's Involvement After the Challenger Disaster

2006-02-09T14:31:00.000-05:00

In class we have been talking a lot about the "burden of proof" and Morton-Thiokol's role in the Challenger disaster. After watching the videos, and actually hearing the manager's arguments as to why they decided to overrule the engineers just baffles me completely. A question came up in class that asked if Morton-Thiokol continued to work with NASA, and are they still in business today, which I thought was a very interesting question. I wanted to look into more about the idea, but I thought first I should provide a little background on the burden of proof and Morton-Thiokol's role to truly understand how intriguing the question was.

Before the Challenger had launched, NASA's engineers found a potential deadly problem with the O-rings. Both NASA engineers and engineers from Morton-Thiokol (the contractor who built the O-rings) argued that under the currently freezing weather conditions, it would be unsafe to launch. At the time NASA's had a safety policy that they called the "burden of proof." The "burden of proof" stated that if someone can prove that there is a problem, defect, or something is unsafe then in order to continue they must first prove without a reasonable doubt that there is no problem. Meaning that you don't have to prove that anything is unsafe, but you have to prove IT IS SAFE, before any type of launch or progress is made.

This policy called the "burden of proof" was twisted around the night before the launch of the Challenger. NASA changed there safety procedures, "burden of proof," and said that the engineers would have to prove to management that it was unsafe to launch as scheduled. Morton-Thiokol had told NASA that it was UNSAFE to launch under the current weather conditions because of the usually cold weather. NASA having never being told by a contractor not to launch, was suspicious of why all of a sudden Morton-Thiokol engineers were bringing up the safety issues of the O-rings. After a long debate between upper management, it was decided to go on with the launch and ignore the engineers who promised disaster if they launched Challenger as scheduled. As we all now know, Challenger exploded because of the O-rings, and freezing temperatures.

This brings me back to the question I asked before, does Morton-Thiokol still exist today and work for NASA. When I typed Morton-Thiokol into Google I was brought to a website, that called themselves ATK. I was confused as to if the company had changed names or if I was even at the correct website. When I searched further I found a company history on Morton-Thiokol from Wikepedia.com. There it was said on that website that O-rings that caused the Challenger to explode, which were produced by Morton-Thiokol, and that after the disaster in 1989 Morton-Thiokol split into two separate companies. Morton split into a primarily chemically concerned company, while Thiokol took over propulsion systems. If you click on the link to Wikipedia, you can see that Thiokol merged again, and now are referred to as the ATK or Alliant Techsystems, which controls a huge share of the US rocket market. It is interesting that the company split soon after the Challenger disaster, but if you look on the ATK website you will find a picture of a rocket with NASA written on it. Which leads me to assume that NASA is still using ATK as a contractor for rockets. As you can see, ATK and NASA are still working together in space exploration, even after the Challenger disaster. Which I find very surprising and interesting since they experienced so much miscommunication and tragedy with the Challenger incident.

Personal Blog or Corporate Exploitation?

2006-02-08T15:21:00.000-05:00

We've had such an interesting discussion of the difference between personal blogging vs. corporate blogging that I had to bring up something I saw the other day. Being the professional wrestling fan that I am, I was surfing the World Wrestling Entertainment website and saw that hardcore legend Mick Foley had his own blog. It's an interesting read, especially if you're one of his millions of fans. But after reading it, I had to ask myself, why is it here? Their's no question that this is a personal blog; Foley talks about meeting WWE diva Stacey Kiebler and his trip to Afghanistan to visit the troops. Why would WWE host this blog instead of Foley posting it on either his own website or some public domain? As a major corporation, WWE would have to have some type of motivation for putting this content on its site.
I decided to take a closer look at entertainment companies that utilize blogs and had some interesting results. I found that both the NHL and the NBA have a spot on their website just for blogs. Some of these blogs focus on predictions, thoughts on the games, trends in the sport, etc.
So what's the point? I think what we have here are two very different types of marketing to entertainment fans. As a retired wrestler, Foley isn't in the spotlight much anymore. His blog offers the WWE fans a bit of nostalgia and up-to-date information on one of the sport's biggest superstars. On the otherside, the NHL and NBA blogs offer a great breadth of commentary on what's happening in the sports world. These blogs are almost like written transcripts of what you see when you turn on ESPN; the thoughts on happenings in the league by some of the biggest experts in the field.
I couldn't really find any other examples of utilizing personal blogs by corporations. I just found it interesting that an entertainment corporation like the WWE would put a personal blog up so much. Here's some food for thought; is Foley being exploited? Is he unwillingly being used as a marketing ploy or do you think he's doing it for the notoriety? Should corporations use their spokesperson's blogs as a marketing tool or just stick to the tried and true, boring endorsements? Maybe this is the next level of celebrity marketing. What do you think?

The beginning of the end

2006-02-03T18:30:00.000-05:00

That’s it; I am officially over the hill. At the ripe age of 22, I am out of the loop; technology has moved past my realm of knowledge. When did this blogging stuff begin?? (For the record, my computer is so old it doesn’t automatically recognize “blog” as an English word.) How did I miss the memo? Where did my learning stop? Am I the last one to begin blogging? Did you know blog is a combination of the words “web” and “log”? (I am sure you did, but just in case you use jargon without knowing it’s meaning, my research uncovered that nifty fact.) Before this class had begun, I knew nothing of this phenomenon.

You can imagine my disbelief, when I was spending some of my free time reading a magazine--trying not to think about class—and to my shock I stumble upon an article (Glamour magazine, January 2006) on blogging: Apparently this has been going on for years, with over 50 million blogs in existence! Evidently people blog for many reasons, to connect with long-distance families and friends, as a support group (for subjects such as weight-loss), and advice for raising their children. People can also get fired from their jobs for blogging… And now I am blogging to fulfill a class requirement.

It seems this group of people using common technology to communicate have created a new space. Whether it is for business or leisure, people are communicating through channels previously not penetrated. This network can be both formal and informal. The diverse capabilities of blogging create this fascinating force of humans coming together to share experiences in search of a common ground. Question: With this (relatively) new technology, are people sacrificing their face-to-face interpersonal relationships in favor of a potentially less-intimidating avenue of communication? Will blogging eventually take over as the most popular communication method? Can 50 million people be wrong? (I was trying to echo that Bon Jovi sentiment, but couldn’t remember it exactly, so I “googled” it, and would you believe the first response was a BLOG called “100,000 bloggers can’t be wrong”!!)

So dear readers, it is not a complete loss, I am still clinging to the other side of hill, trying to creep back up to the top, where you all are conversing in this fascinating forum.

The bottom line: If you are reading, I was able to post, and I am now part of the blogging community …yikes!

Let the Postings Begin for Spring 2006!

2006-02-01T16:05:00.000-05:00

It's time for another term of Advanced Organizational Communication! We have met in class for a few weeks now and students should begin their postings soon. We really appreciate the excellent response we had last year from the blogosphere and hope we can continue the dialogue this "Spring" term as well (I use the scare quotes because it is nowhere near Spring yet but we like to be optimistic here at Northeastern rather than saying "Winter" term).

In class now we are reading Phil Tompkins' book Apollo, Challenger, Columbia: The Decline of the Space Program -- A Study in Organizational Communication. Our focus is on what organizations must do in order to main an ethical and effective system of communication for both internal and external stakeholders.

We'll also have a great project on corporate blogging starting in a few weeks. We'll be partnering with John Cass of Backbone Media. Details to come!

Ghost Blogging??

2006-01-05T12:11:00.000-05:00

While I'm supposed to be on vacation for a few more days I couldn't help but pass along Toby Bloomberg from Diva Marketing's latest blog post. It has everything to do with what we spent our semester talking about, specificaly synthetic transparency and credibility. At first, I was annoyed that executives would have someone else write their "personal" blogs for them, defeating the goal of a blog in the first place. One of Toby's Commenters, Tim Jackson pointed out however that this isn't very different from usual business, "Hey, it's why we PR folks get paid- that is what my clients pay me to do; express themselves for them." He has a point, but does this type of activity take away from the world of blogging and put it firmly in the category of press releases, sound bytes and press conferences?

Thank You from Advanced Organizational Communication (Fall 2005)

2005-12-20T14:17:00.000-05:00

I would like to thank all of the students for their contributions to the blog throughout the semester.

On behalf of the whole class I would also like to thank all of those outside our course who have linked to our site or posted comments (John Cass, Kip Meacham, Alex, Debbie Weil, Jeremy Pepper, Jack Vinson, The Supervisor, Louie, Elizabeth Albrycht, Dr. Joanne Detore-Nakamura, Zane Safrit, and Phil Gomes), as well as those who agreeed to be interviewed for our Blog Analysis Report assignment (for purposes of anonymity we will not mention specific names).

Special thank yous go to the following people:

- John Cass of Backbone Media for contributing the report "Corporate Blogging: Is It Worth the Hype?" and discussions about that report;

- Pete Blackshaw and Christopher Hannegan for contributing the Edelman and Intelliseek report "Talking from the Inside Out: The Rise of Employee Bloggers";

- Dr. Phil Tompkins for the dialogue about his book Apollo, Challenger, Columbia: The Decline of the Space Program

We will have another section of this course in the "Spring" term (which actually means during the cold New England winter), so look out for new posts in another month or so!

Blogging as Organizational Communication, by Emily Bhatti

2005-12-19T14:32:00.000-05:00

Context For This Post

“Why would you study blogging in an organizational communication class? What concepts from organizational communication give you any special insight into
blogging?”

Students in an organizational communication class must not only obtain knowledge of the foundations of communication principles but they must also stay up to date with new technology and its impact on the organization. Blogging is a new phenomenon and its widespread use within organizations makes it a perfect application for study in our class. While blogging is a new concept, it is still just another channel of communication that has opened up for organizations to use. Therefore, the concepts in organizational communication that apply to the sending and receiving of messages through any given channel apply to the practices of blogging.

One of the main concepts from Tompkins book was the concept of speaking truth to power. Blogging has opened up an arena where employees can express their thoughts, wishes, and beliefs in a public forum. This ability to gripe about the problems at work allows employees the benefits of speaking truth to power especially in organizations that condone blogging and read their employee’s blogs. Blogging allows for feedback and openness, two traits that are essential to successful communication with any medium. However, with any medium there is a danger that the true purposes of the medium will not be carried out sincerely. The risk of synthetic transparency, or a quality of “fakeness” within a blog, is dangerous and even more a reason why students should study blogging to be aware about what is necessary for it to be practiced properly.

If blogging is practiced properly, many employees will be able to feel empowered by having a voice on their blog. Empowerment, the fostering of self-driven employees, creates an environment where employees are happy and are motivated to work hard for the good of themselves and the organization. Blogging allows employees some power in what they say and do, and can help them feel control over their role within an organization.

There are many pros of blogging but there are also many ways that blogging can be done improperly at the expense of the employees and the company. Since blogging is new to the organization, students need to be aware of how blogging works as they enter the work force in a few years. By learning about blogging from the perspective of organizational communication, it can be assured the knowledge of good communication practices will help to keep blogging a healthy activity.

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Blogging as Organizational Communication, by Becky Meyer

2005-12-18T14:27:00.000-05:00

Context For This Post

“Why would you study blogging in an organizational communication class? What concepts from organizational communication give you any special insight into
blogging?”

Organizational communication classes are typically theory-based, as opposed to application-based, by their very nature. As important as theories are, I believe that they are not truly understood until they are applied to an actual situation. Blogging has allowed me to apply the concepts I have been learning for the past 4 years, in such a way that I was able to understand them in greater depth and scope. The applied concepts that were most apparent to me are the following, along with a brief reason why I believe they gave me special insight into blogging:

•Organizational identity: when employees blog for work, at work or about work, these blogs have the potential to help align the employees goals and mindsets to those of the organizations. The blogs act as a way to connect the individual-self to the work-self.

•Automatic responsibility: many corporate blogs seek feedback from customers and other company outsiders. Employees who read those blogs have the responsibility to either fix the issue or find someone who is capable of fixing it.

•The ideal communication climate (SCOPE): the 5 aspects of an ideal communication climate (supportiveness, credibility, openness, participatory decision-making, and emphasis on high performance goals) can be used to determine the effectiveness of corporate blogs. They can also help to generate criteria for whether or not an organization is ready to blog.

•Speaking truth to power/rocking the boat and whistleblowing: Blogs can act as a system of checks and balances for corporations that blog. If employees see something wrong, they can expose the problem easily, thereby damaging the company’s credibility and reputation. Thus blogs can help end wrongful business.

•Organizational culture: blogs can help employees connect with one another, regardless of status. It provides a forum for sharing ideas and feedback. Blogs have the ability to foster more internal collaboration and improve supportiveness and openness in the organization’s culture.

•Empowerment: blogs serve to empower employees by acting as a communication tool that allows them to express their self-identity and individual skills. Also, there may be people (customers, other employees, management, etc.) relying on them to accomplish something (relates to automatic responsibility) which would make employees feel worthwhile and needed.

There are several other course concepts that relate to blogging, but the 6 mentioned above were most helpful to me in understanding and gaining insight into the corporate “blogosphere.”

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Blogging as Organizational Communication, by Leigh Taginski

2005-12-17T14:25:00.000-05:00

Context For This Post

“Why would you study blogging in an organizational communication class? What concepts from organizational communication give you any special insight into
blogging?”

On the surface, blogging looks like an activity for 13 year old girls and boys to discuss their recent crushes. However, in the context of organizational identification, employee empowerment, speaking truth to power and the power of language, studying blogging becomes a powerful tool for companies and employees as well. In an economy and society where everything seems to be standardized and codified, blogs are a breath of fresh air for organizational communication. No longer is the communication between customers and companies like pulling teeth. No longer is the CEO behind 3 doors of security on the top floor keeping his personality hidden behind fancy memos and generic emails. Blogs are giving customers and employees a voice and companies an ear.

However, with this new tool comes the possibility of problems as well. Employees are not always happy with their jobs and a blog to the world on bad practices could mean the end of their reputation. However, what if that company needed some light shone on what they were doing? Phil Tompkins would argue that speaking truth to power is an important action that employees need to be able to take and blogs could give them the outlet to do so. By pointing out the problems as well as the highlights, blogs offer companies and employees an opportunity to display honesty, increase credibility or perpetuate the problem based on how the situation is handled. A negative comment is not the end all or a reason not to blog; not being able to handle feedback may be however. Companies that are not ready to act on feedback have other communication problems that need to be addressed first.

Blogs are also important from an organizational communication standpoint as they help to measure the openness, credibility and overall SCOPE [supportiveness, credibility, openness, participatory decision making, and emphasis on high performance goals] of the organization. How a company handles company and personal blogging will show a lot about the communication climate they have. A company’s problem with blogs may help to highlight what communication areas may need some altering so that it can better display an ideal communication climate. Blogging is about communicating and when it is introduced as a tool for communicating in or about an organization it is important for both the blogger, the audience and the company to understand the impact the blog could potentially have on all parties involved. Jobs have been lost over blog content and company reputations have been smeared. These important implications prove that this tool is a serious medium that needs to be understood, and studied; but at the very least make people aware that it exists and what it can do.

Just as email is included in an organization communication class now, blogging needs to be studied as well. Blogs offer a space to enrich or hurt an organization’s communication climate and the impacts can no longer be ignored as the age of the blogosphere picks up speed.

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

Final Blog Postings: Blogging As Organizational Communication

2005-12-17T14:04:00.000-05:00

Our semester is now complete and I would like to announce that our final blog postings will come from three of our students reflecting on why blogging should be studied in a course on organizational communication (at the advanced undergraduate level). Specifically, they were asked to draw on course concepts in making their most compelling argument for the following question:

“Why would you study blogging in an organizational communication class? What concepts from organizational communication give you any special insight into blogging?”

In three separate posts to follow, we will hear from what I consider to be the top responses to this question from the Fall 2005 class. I have received permission from each of the students to post their brief essays (each student was limited to 500 words): Leigh Taginski, Becky Meyer, and Emily Bhatti.

One essay will be posted over the next three days, starting today.

2005-12-09T22:39:00.000-05:00

The Emrooz website was set up by people close to Iran's reformist President, Mohammad Khatami. Since a crackdown on reformist press, the internet has become the main forum for dissident voices in Iran. Emrooz carries news and current affairs articles that are broadly sympathetic to the reformist agenda, and challenge the wide-ranging powers of Iran's spiritual leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Ayatollah Khamenei controls some of Iran's most powerful non-elected institutions, including the judiciary and the army. Iranian internet service providers have always been prevented from permitting access to sites deemed pornographic or anti-Islamic by the authorities, most of which originate outside Iran. But this is the first time the judiciary has banned an Iran-based domestic political website in this way.
Since the crackdown, there have been eight arrest of webbloggers and reformist newspaper journalists. The Iranian journalists' union are fearing a more radical crackdown.
Everyone try and check these articles out. Like the police that used myspace for evidence in a PA murder case, issues are even happening internationally.

Closing in on childrens' social skills: better for us or them?

2005-12-09T22:15:00.000-05:00

About a month back, I came across an article I wanted to share with the class out of the Boston Globe. It was the November 13th issue, the article entitled, "Don't underestimate the value of social skills," by Penelope Trunk. In this article, the importance of having social skills was emphasized, and related to how they impact the workplace. The article touched on the notion of "in" and "out groups" and mentioned "how we value competence changes depending on whether we like someone or not" (p. G 1). What I thought was very interesting was what educators are doing now to promote this skill set. It seems that schools are starting to work on children during their playground days now, plucking out those who seem to need extra help in socializing with other children, and giving them a "variety of therapeutic approaches [that can] teach a child social skills while their brain is still forming" (p. G12). I couldn't believe it when I read that they were doing this at such an early age now, considering the number of years children have before they need to enter the workplace; and I'm still not sure of how I feel about it all. However, I do think that being liked, as Trunk notes in her article, is key to landing a job, or staying at a job. We are being conditioned now to be in the "in" groups, whether we know it or not. However, I'm not sure if the educators' decision to start on children this early was for the childrens benefit as much as it is for the organization the child may grow up to work in. Kenneth Burke's notion of identification sticks out for me while I'm rehashing this stuff. Will we feel more guilty for the children who grow up with under-the-par social skills? Or are we worried more about ourselves, as potential managers or co-workers who may feel guilty not being able to break through the wall of difference between ourselves and someone other than us (which is what Burke's theory deals with)? I'd like to think it's for the children, but in a capitalist society that is very self-concerned, I can't be so sure. Thoughts?

The Survival of the New Orleans Blog

2005-12-09T21:21:00.000-05:00

If you go to Technorati's Top 100 Blogs, you can see the most popular blogs in the blogosphere, based on links from blogs to blogs in the last six months. As I scrolled through the list of accomplished bloggers, I saw "The Survival of the New Orleans Blog". It was number 100. Michael Barnett, the blogger, posts about life in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. He says that he tells the truth about what it's like to live there, how people are losing their jobs, and that simple repairs are still very far from complete. In his last post, he leaves his readers with some advice "tell the truth- in the long run you'll be doing more good than harm". I found it intersting that he included this tidbit of insight, because in my crisis communication class all we've been hearing is "tell it all, tell it fast", "be honest". In learning that practitioners perspective and seeing Michael give the same advice in times of a crisis, it makes him a more credible source to me. His honesty and honesty about honesty made me want to keep reading. Even though he could just be a regular guy venting, (there wasn't really any information about who he was in the blog), I believed what he had to say. Maybe that's all bloggers can do.. be honest and original, and hope that they're seen as credible sources.

How Blogging Mirrors Living, by Cristina Calderaro

2005-12-09T19:51:00.000-05:00

After recently ending a hostess job I used to work frequently, and finding a bit more time on my [usually tied] hands, I thought today about work, and how it pertains to the quality of life. Life is always better for me when I have a lot of work to do- odd, but true for many of us. I thought of blogging, in relation to work, too (5 years ago this sentence would have confused many, I know). I realized how the two- life and blogging- are very much interconnected. One is almost a metaphor for the other... think about it. When we do our work, and are happy, people always are interested to know what we are up to, how we’re doing, where we’re going out Friday night- you know the drill. For bloggers, when they do their work, and blog each day (or close to that at least), people tune in and want to hear all about it. Readers become addicted almost. An example is John Mayer’s MySpace blog- his fans love his blogs, and part of that is because they are written consistently (I'll explain the other part in another conversation sometime). As a result, John is getting his fans even more pumped up about him, and about his music, which I'm sure is great for his career- and so constructive. But when bloggers don't do their work, blogs gets harder and harder to follow, and we become I think a little distanced from them... here's an example. About a month and a half ago I found a blog called CelebrityScum. This site has gossip about celebrities (I found it doing research for another project). While their posts are great- always very entertaining and informative, it's a site thats posts usually only come few and far between, unfortunately. I went to check this site today and there was a blog there which said that the domain was being sold. While the editor mentioned on the blog that they were re-working the entire site altogether, I think that people were starting to get frustrated with the blog, as well: "Everybody wants to know what happened to CelebrityScum. The numerous emails made that pretty clear" (www.celebrityscum.com). The posts on this blog were very inconsistent from month to month, and I think if they had posted more regularly, they woudln't need to sell the domain now... (just my two cents).
I think the sad end to celebrityscum can teach us all of the importance in keeping on top of our lives, and our blogs, by putting in as much as we can, every single day. The success went to the sure and steady tortoise, let’s not forget. Blogging is really much like living. It's how much you put in that determines how much you get back. There's an interesting connection I think there.

Look at me!

2005-12-09T17:35:00.000-05:00

With millions of people learning about this new tool, how do you make your blog stand out in the blogosphere? I found a great resource to address this question. I hope it wasn't mentioned before, but it's John Jantsch's Duct Tape Marketing. It's been recognized by Forbes Magazine as a great resource for small businesses, and once you visit, I think you'll agree.
Although this was a useful resource for my applied research report, I still have to wonder if Joe Shmoe's Shoe Shop Blog can get attention in this ocean of blogs, and become the next Scoble.

Support Group Blogs

2005-12-08T21:42:00.000-05:00

The rise of blogging has led to the formation of health blogs. I have found a couple of blogs that support groups for cancer and diabetes patients just to name a few.

I think these blogs brings a new dynamic to the creation of support groups. People are able to get some of the latest information on medication, procedures and treatments available. People who suffer from these diseases are able to console one another making people feel that they are not alone.

These blogs make me trully see the impact and influence blogs have on peoples lives. In the diabetes blog there is a post to a link of a young man's blog who has been battling with diabetes since a very young age adding a personal touch. There are even links to local foundations were people can volunteer or make a donations.

When Murder Hits the Blogosphere

2005-12-08T21:34:00.000-05:00

I searched the net today on my friend's computer ( she has msnbc.com as her homepage), and there it was... "When murder hits the blogosphere: Personal sites suddenly very public in aftermath of Pennsylvania killing". (I'm sure many of you have heard about the 18 year old who killed his girlfriend's parents.) Apparently, both Kara ( the victims' daughter) and David had blogs on their myspace accounts. Their myspace profiles and personal blogs now seem to be a great interest of authorities investigating the murder case. The article highlights a good point. Myspace and blogs provide a window into the personal lives of others. Possible valuable information could be found from a simple set of blog posts. Although the point of Myspace is to make a profile, contact and be known to others, maybe these blog postings are revealing too much information about personal lives. Maybe bloggers need to set more limits to what they say in their blog posts. Maybe anonymity really is best?.. what you say can and will be held against you.

Autonomous?

2005-12-08T12:59:00.000-05:00

I was looking into getting some feedback for my paper so I sat down with my manager at the company I'm recommending to start a blog. I'm proposing a customer service/marketing blog that will help customers get more information about the shopping center, any events as well as have the opportunity to ask any questions of the blogger they may have about the Center. My manager loved the idea but her two concerns were 1) how much time this would require from the bloggers' days and 2) how to regulate it. She was concerned that each blog would have to be approved before it could be posted. Obviously blogging regulations would have to be created for this company to feel comfortable with the posting, which we know is common. I was wondering, though, how a blog that goes through approval processes is considered in the blogosphere. I'm sure many companies are afraid of liability and secrets getting out as we've read, but if every post is to be approved, doesn't that take away from part of the goal of blogging?

Credibility Meter

2005-12-08T00:36:00.000-05:00

When we pick up a Tabloid off the newspaper stand, we know we're reading rubbish. With blogs and wikis though, I feel like its easy to be tricked into believing what we read. Many people are jumping on the blogging bandwagon, including already established politicians and media personalities. When I read politically driven blogs with fancy looking charts and statistics, can I trust what I read? It seems credible, but who's checking to see if the information is correct?...Nobody! How about when I want to learn about the Roman god, Pluto. I go to Wikipedia. It's an encyclopedia right?....one that anyone can edit! Should I then cite it on my big Org Comm paper?...or is that just as credible as citing my friend Joe Shmoe?

Future for blogs

2005-12-07T21:13:00.000-05:00

I was reading that Voice section of the September 2005 issue of Financial Planning and come accross the "10 questions section" which were directed toward Dan Hunter and Kevin Werbach on Blogs and NewInformation Center of Gravty.When asked "where are we right now on the blog evoloution timeline?" Hunter responded that they will continue to advance. he also said that "The remarkable opportunity for blogs to lower the cost of creating and publishing content means that the amount of information and commentary to address this small niche of financial planners could, and probably will, expand expodentially. You might see hundreds, if not thousands, of collaborative media that will spring up to address this niche- and thats a wonderful thing!"

We were talking in class about blogs changing the way people use print such as newpapers, magazine, and books....this seems to be something that people are thinking of already, as a route that blogs might goit will be interesting to see how copywriting and sales are affected by this. It would make newspapers, magazines and books online so much more accessible, then again companies may not go to that in fear of losing sales. it becomes a toss up. This would not mean just with financial niches but with all niches.

Advanced Organizational Communication

2005-12-07T15:55:00.000-05:00

Advanced Organizational CommunicationAs I was doing my research I found an interesting site called Your Guide to Corporate Blogging It may worth a glance. The site is run by a Sweedish gentleman, Fredrik Wacka. There are many good tools aside from the blog posts such as, business blogging basics and a list of european corporate blogs. The topic of the moment is in regards to social tools in business and how blogs an play an important role in external and internal communicaion. It also discusses the role of blogs as newspapers. It is interesting in the electronic bases age that we are in how the form in which we digest information is changing so rapidly. I do not believe that paper news sources will ever disapear, but maybe instead of buying them we will be downloading and printing them to take with us.

Virtual vs. Physical

2005-12-05T20:43:00.000-05:00

In my other Communication class today, my professor posed to our class this question- Would you go to a public place (street corner, Quad on campus) and engage in a speaker and comment to what the speaker was preaching about? Would you ask questions and state concerns with the speaker, or let them know that you agree with what is being said. Most of us would say no in many cases. But, with the rise of the blogosphere, we are willing to go online, read posts, add comments and participate in this alternative form of discourse. Because why? Why can we do it in a virtual space, but not a physical one? I thought this was really interesting. Our discussion of anonymity seems like it could play a significant role in approaching this. One can be seen, and physically looked at if in a public space, but on the other hand, a blogger can be completely anonymous. Let me know what you guys think of this.

Collaborative Literature Review on Corporate Blogging

2005-12-05T15:33:00.000-05:00

This week students will be writing their Applied Research Reports on corporate blogging as organizational communication. As a class we agreed that students would share resources they found and post them as comments to this blog post. All of the comments will then be compiled and placed in a new post.

Anyone outside the class is also welcome to post academic or trade sources on corporate blogging. We'd love to hear from you!

Blog Education

2005-12-05T14:04:00.000-05:00

When talking to my dad about this class and how we use blogs so much, he had so many questions about what they are exactly. He told me that he thought blogs were just like online journals where people write whatever they want about any topic usually being their lives. He wanted to know why he should be interested in that at all and why he should think of them as credible. I think that there are many people still who dont understand what blogs are, I didnt until this class. When people think of blogs, they think of personal journals where people just whine about their lives. But they are so much more. I think there needs to be more education about blogs. People dont understand that whatever you can think of, i'm sure someone is blogging about it.

Corporate Blogs as Media of Empowerment? Three Criteria To Assess a Company's Culture of Empowerment

2005-12-05T00:12:00.000-05:00

Much has been made of the potential for corporate blogs to empower their authors, largely due to the fact that blogs have the potential to give employees a voice and an audience they might not otherwise have available to them. For example, in Edelman & Intelliseek's excellent report entitled "Talking From the Inside Out: The Rise of Employee Bloggers"* (link opens PDF in new window) their first paragraph reads:

The rise of the blogosphere has the potential to empower employees in ways not unlike the rise of labor unions in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Although more subtle than those fundamental shifts in the labor-management dynamic, employee bloggers, in many cases, have tipped the balance of influence in their favor to establish levels of credibility that many CEOs can only dream of. (p. 3)

This excerpt sets the bar very high. How do we know if corporate blogging is reaching that potential? What criteria can be used to determine whether or not blogging is really helping employees to feel more empowered? These two questions were recently discussed in our Advanced Organizational Communication class at Northeastern University. We would like to propose that there are (at least) three criteria to use in order to assess whether or not employees are really empowered. We invite bloggers in organizations to ask these questions of themselves and their companies to determine if they are really empowered through their blogging efforts. The three criteria are: 1) autonomy of judgment, 2) level of authenticity, and 3) level of subordination.

To assess autonomy of judgment employee bloggers can ask: How much freedom do I have in the content and style of my blog posts? How rigid are our guidelines or policies about what can and cannot be said? Does my company trust me enough to make these decisions for myself, or do my posts need to be screened before they are allowed to become publicly accessible? We hypothesize that greater autonomy of judgment leads to greater feelings of empowerment. We also acknowledge that companies do have legitimate needs to constrain or otherwise prohibit certain types of blogging activities, such as not disclosing company secrets, not allowing harrassing behaviors, etc.

To assess level of authenticity employee bloggers can ask: To what extent do I feel like I am speaking with my own voice? Do I feel like I have to change how I speak in order to fit the style of how my company wants me to speak? We hypothesize that greater levels of authenticity lead to greater feelings of empowerment.

To assess level of subordination employee bloggers can ask: To what extent am I made to subordinate my own needs to the needs of my employer or my audience (such as customers, clients, colleagues or other stakeholders)? To what extent are my perspectives as an employee made subordinate to management interests and decision-making (for example, if my voice needed to be heard in order to right an organizational wrong-doing or injustice, would my voice be heard)? To what extent am I involved in decisions that affect my blogging activities? We hypothesize that lower levels of subordination lead to greater feelings of empowerment.

In our humble opinion we propose that employees, and their companies, that want to foster a communication climate of empowerment would do well to reflect on these three criteria -- autonomy of judgment, level of authenticity, and level of subordination -- and design guidelines and policies accordingly.

Please comment on our three criteria, critique them, praise them, suggest additional criteria or alternatives. We would love to hear what you think!

If you are interested in this theme of empowerment, you may also be interested in our postings (1, 2, and 3) on using the phrase "synthetic transparency" to call out corporate blogging practices that do not hold to the ideals of blogs as media that facilitate openness, honesty, and clarity.

* We read the Edelman & Intelliseek report in our class as an assigned reading. I would strongly encourage other classes to do the same, as well as any individual or company who wants an engaging and accessible introduction to this fascinating topic.

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

Celebrity Gossip Blogs

2005-12-04T23:39:00.000-05:00

Blogs are becoming increasingly popular as a medium of information. In doing some research of the different blogs that are out there in the "blogsphere"I found a ton on celebrity gossip. These blogs contain the latest information on the hottest celebrities out there. Some of them are sponser by popular newspapers, or personal blog website. This makes me wonder if blogs will take over the job of tabloid magazine since people can access them for free.

Encouraging email from Tompkins!

2005-12-01T21:04:00.000-05:00

Hi guys! Tompkins read our response and here is what he had to say about it!

Hi Gretchen,

Wonderful! A writer/professor could not ask for a better, more thoughtful response. First, it proves the students read and understood the book. Second, thy used some of my own value premises in their response. Third, they were thinking. Please share with them my appreciation of their response. In addition, let them know that I will be giving a speech in late January in Daytona Beach. There willbe some NASA people there, college students like you and your colleagues, and people from the community. They want me to stress communication, to begin with Challenger, move on to Columbia, then move backwards in time to Apollo. I will then develop my improvement on an economic theory about asymmetrical information--I will call it the inequality of information--and then close with the information from Deep Throat. Call it Automatic Responsibility. Call it Penetration. Call it speaking the truth to power. I will meet with a class reading ACC. That will be fun. They will be giving me a big stipend, but I would have met with your class for expenses. In a week moment I might have come at my expense. Thanks, Gretchen, for the lively correspondence.

With admiration and regards, Phil

Blogging is frustrating me very much!

2005-12-01T17:45:00.000-05:00

Just blogged about unintentional hyperlinks and more phrases were hyperlinked that I did not want to and without my knowledge. Wondering if other people are seeing these links, because I did not put them in and it is frustrating me very much!!

Unintentional Hyperlinks

2005-12-01T17:43:00.000-05:00

While commenting on Kaitlin’s Post Secret Blog, two phrases were hyperlinked, although I did not intend to. It made me wonder if all blogs or comments automatically pick up on certain phrases and hyperlink them to certain websites, and if anyone else has encountered this problem. It made me feel weird that bloggers may be blogging about something, and hyperlinks are put in, without intention or their knowledge. One phrase was “find someone” and it linked to a match-making website- a sneaky way to advertise I think, and also unethical- any thoughts?

Resources for Your Applied Research Reports: NewPR Wiki and Creative Commons

2005-11-30T22:03:00.000-05:00

Here's a great resource on corporate blogging and "new" forms of public relations: NewPR Wiki. There's also a really helpful timeline of bloggers in the PR industry.

We will also be discussing in class the use of a Creative Commons license for your applied research reports. You can learn about licenses specifically for text documents like the reports you will be writing. By the way, while you're there, I would encourage you to read about Kembrew McLeod who is a faculty member in the Department of Communication Studies at the University of Iowa, my Ph.D. alma mater. Kembrew arrived as a new faculty member the year I defended my dissertation. He has tremendous insight into intellectual property and copyright issues, and is a huge prankster (like the time he sold his soul on eBay!). Extremely sharp and witty, definitely learn more about him!

Class thoughts to Tompkins

2005-11-30T18:12:00.000-05:00

In response to Tompkins email, the class came up with a few ideas collectively. We decided that we need more information, because we would have to make a decision depending on the following factors: Seriousness of the situation, whether the “background source” has tried to rock the boat previously, verification of the information, speaking truth to power, and automatic responsibility.

First off, we need to know how serious the situation was. How many lives were lost, if any? Were lives damaged emotionally or professionally? Was there damage to the project as a whole? If there was not a huge amount of damage done, then perhaps the whistle should be blown on something a little more serious.

The next question to ask is this: Has this “background source” tried to rock the boat before? If he or she has, then it makes sense to then talk to someone about it. But if not, we think the best strategy would be to advise the source to rock the boat or whistle blow because they have the most information and are the most directly involved with the situation.

Tompkins should also verify that the information is correct. If the background source is not telling the truth, it could affect Tompkins credibility if he were to act upon this person’s word without confirming the information first.

Next, we have to relate this decision to Tompkins book. According to his book, you should speak truth to power, regardless of the situation. He said himself, “In the end, however, it is the individual who must be upright, who must stand up against the system when it violates the ultimate values. The system cannot save itself.” With that said, we have to ask, if he wrote this, then why even ask? Is this a mere test?

Lastly, we have to question whether Tompkins has considered this part of automatic responsibility. Though he is not affiliated with NASA now, it is very possible that he still feels a strong connection to the organization. Automatic responsibility requires that a person follow through with something that is off point, even if it is not in their area of expertise. If Tompkins considers this to be automatic responsibility, then by all means, say something. The only argument against this would be the question, “Is it really your responsibility?”

Hope this was helpful!

PostSecret Blog

2005-11-30T16:15:00.000-05:00

This morning, I was watching a news show and caught an interview with Frank Warren. He is an artist who asked people to participate on a project he was working on, "You are invited to anonymously contribute your secrets to PostSecret. Each secret can be a regret, hope, funny experience, unseen kindness, fantasy, belief, fear, betrayal, erotic desire, feeling, confession, or childhood humiliation. Reveal anything - as long as it is true and you have never shared it with anyone before". The secrets have been made into a book, but are also posted on a blog. This is one of the most interesting and entertaining blogs I have ever seen. Everyone should take a look!

Controversy Surrounding Anonymous Blogs

2005-11-30T12:02:00.000-05:00

Anonymous blogs seems to be a touchy subject. Those who support and refute their use both have solid points. The "blogosphere" by its very nature is supposed to be an outlet for bloggers to let their creativity and ideas flow with the opportunity for feedback (or is it turning into something else?) Supporters could claim that they want to participate in this new, interactive technology without exposing their identity. Their reasons for this could be personal or work-related.

On the other hand, those who oppose using anonymous blogs could claim that using names requires those who blog to truly think about and be held accountable for their published content. It also allows the blogger to establish their credibility and personality online and potentially build a following. Since blogging is still new, I suppose that only time will tell whether or not it is functional to use anonymous names when blogging.

The Big Blog Company

2005-11-21T20:31:00.000-05:00

I came upon this website called The Big Blog Company. I thought it was really interesting because it offers so much information on blogs including brand blogs, crisis blogs, internal blogs and there is a blog glossary. They say "We are a team of ardent bloggers who understand the impact of blogging and the network of blogs on communication. It gives individuals and companies the ability to generate and distribute their ideas more widely and effectively. We can help businesses and organisations to improve their reach and initiate genuine interaction with their audiences. We believe that markets are conversations and engaging them increases your chances of being heard.We know that there is a great deal more to establishing a successful blog than setting up the publishing software. It is in our understanding of the ‘what’ and ‘how’ of effective blogging and how it can enhance a company’s business that the true value of the Big Blog Company lies." It seems like a pretty interesting site.

Fictional Blogs

2005-11-21T16:40:00.000-05:00

While flipping through Cosmopolitan Magazine, I found a fictional blog about dating. I findd this interesting because it shows how blogs are spreading and their purposes are becoming varied. I have read books where the story is told through emails and this makes me wonder if soon there will be books that tell the story through blogs?

Scary Consequences with Automatic Responsibility

2005-11-20T21:04:00.000-05:00

On Friday, Becky, Sarah and I attended one of the NCA sessions at the Marriott. Julie Novak from North Dakota State University was presenting her paper "Reducing Health Risk but Increasing Organizational Mindfulness: Rethinking the Conceptual Equation for Risk". It was based on a situation at the Duke University Medical Center where a lung transplant killed a teenager because of a mismatch in the blood types. Julie Novak looked into the situation and found that it stemed from everyone assuming that the multi step process was taking care of that "minor" detail and that someone else looked into the blood match, that wasn't their job. Just an example of many of the theories we've covered, included, as Julie stated, the "silo" effect where each department sees itself as a seperate entity and there is lack of communication between them. I just thought this was an interesting exmple of an extremely tragic accident that could have been prevented and was based on miscommuication.

Celebrity Blogs

2005-11-19T16:44:00.000-05:00

In going with recent posts about the rising popularity of blogs and the power that they have, I remembered in class how we talked about different celebrity blogs such as Zach Braff. I decided I wanted to see what some of them were writing and I did a search for celebrity blogs online. The most interesting article I found was the "Best Celebrity Blogs" from Forbes Magazine. I didn't recognize all of the celebrities, but I found it interesting that Barbara Streisand even has a blog! (When you read the article you have to click on the link box that says Click Here for the Best Celebrity Blogs to see the list and keep hitting next- I found it a little confusing). I couldn't get her blog to open, the link did not work, but it seems rather well rounded from the article covering everything from the War in Iraq to her fan base. Like in her article there is a complaint about how often she posts, as seems to be the case with most other celebrities- but seeing as how they are so busy all the time I just think it's great that they do this at all.

Blogs ARE taking over!

2005-11-18T17:09:00.000-05:00

After checking out my interviewee’s blog, I found some interesting statistics. As we have learned in our Media, Culture, and Society course- teens are often looked at for direction toward the next trend- well blogging is it according to the Pew Internet and American Life Project research. Some interesting statistics included: 19% of online youth ages 12-17 have created their own blog. That’s almost four million people! 38% of teens (almost 8 million people) read blogs. Interestingly, 27% of online adults blog. I wonder how many of these adults are blogging about their corporations? I urge everyone to check out the statistics because you can learn more interesting facts about why many people use blogs to write about other things than their corporation.

More Tompkins

2005-11-18T12:58:00.000-05:00

Hi everyone,

So Phil Tompkins emailed me awhile ago about putting his response in the blog and he actually had a question for the class as a whole:

Dear Gretchen,

Do put it on the blog. Let me give you some more information you might want to add to it. Despite the subtitle of my book, NASA invited me to speak and post a paper on a website last month. I spoke at the Ronald Reagan Building. I usually get a bit nervous speaking to an audience of rocket scientists but it went well. They took notes, stopped me with questions, nodded and otherwise expessed their excitement about how von Braun did organizational communication. They were intriguied by the practice of Penetration and peppered me with questions about it. I had the floor for about an hour. They took a break after my presentation but I stayed there because some wanted to continue with questions and comments. There was a former astronaut in the audience, Thomas Jones, who introduced himself and complimented me. He was there promoting his book, THE COMPLETE IDIOT'S GUIDE TO NASA. We inscribed copies of our books and exchanged them. Since then I learned that he will be in Denver this winter to promote another book, so we will get together for a drink or two.

I read the first chapter of his book immediately and found out how they go to the bathroom in space (men and women). I'll give you that information for you blog if you insist.

After the morning session was over we had to walk to another room for lunch. A NASA official took me by the arm and walked me the long way to lunch. He told me about some terrible incidents in NASA that violate the best practices we had during Apollo. He/she wants to be on "Background," an unidentified source. If I reveal these incidents I might get indicted for not revealing my source. Here is a question for the class to answer: Should I reveal the information and take the risk of going to jail? I'd like to know your collective and individual answers.

Warmly, Phil

Wht do you think?

Helpful blog research

2005-11-18T12:48:00.000-05:00

The woman I am interviewing is crunched for time. A lot of times they have answered these questions before. Ask them if they have written a blog relating to some of the questions you are asking. My blogger sent me a link of a previous blog where she answered a lot of my questions. Just a helpful tip to kind of help the person you interview out!

Blogging: The Best PR Tool yet?

2005-11-18T12:16:00.000-05:00

I have been reading CorporatePR's blogs and have been able to see how blogging can be used as a PR resource on many levels. Public relations has a lot to do with creating and promoting "brands," all the while staying closely connected to media members, peers, etc. Blogging can be used to update others on the state of business, as well as promoting clients. Blogging is viewed as (and most likely is in actuality) a credible and reliable source of information. Public relations professionals should make use of this mentality to create positive brand awareness for their clients.

Call Center Abuse

2005-11-17T18:08:00.000-05:00

Hi everyone,
I wanted to follow up on Tuesday’s discussion on call centers and Indian outsourcing. While searching other blogs on blogger, I came upon an interesting article from the San Francisco Chronicle that describes the daily abuse many Indian call center employees have to go through. I encourage everyone to read the article because it gives an interesting perspective, as well as an inside look at Indian call centers and outsourcing. Mike McPhate reports that American citizens are constantly verbally abusing call center employees. The following quote is an example of the verbal abuse many call center employees have to go through on a daily basis: “The caller greeted her with a torrent of racial and sexual slurs, accused her of "roaming about naked without food and clothes" and asked, 'What do you know about computers?'” The anti-outsourcing movement from many Americans has spawned the creation of a new Indian sitcom that documents life at a call center, depicting many westerners as arrogant, and “comically rude.” As a country stricken by poverty, McPhate reports that many of the call center employees feel lucky to bring home a monthly salary of $200-400 and feel as though it comes with the territory to swallow these insults and move on with their job.
For call centers I think there should be a new movement to control the customers, but how? As human beings no one should have to go through this daily abuse, and I think the US corporations who have outsourced their company need to gain more control and enforce stronger policies to dissuade callers from this verbal abuse. This behavoir would not be tolerated in the United States, so why should it be tolerated elsewhere?

Research on Blogs, Blog on Research

2005-11-17T08:00:00.000-05:00

Over the next two days students will be conducting research on blogs as part of their Blog Analysis Report and then will be blogging on selected findings of that research. These findings will be posted in the comments to this post.

The content of their comments/post is up to each student but one guideline provided was that the comment should help others to learn about blogging as organizational communication (such as an important insight they learned, or a resource where more information can be found, etc.).

Call Centers

2005-11-16T19:35:00.000-05:00

After our discussion of call centers on Tuesday I wanted to show you all this blog that I found. It is from an employee, actually a supervisor, of a call center of a "huge, multi-national corporation." From the title of his blog alone "The Supervisor of Customer Service Hell" I could tell that he probably had alot to say about some of the disadvantages of call center work that we have talked about. He discusses some of the stress of dealing with customers and feelings of apathy. On his July 2 post he includes a script of an encounter with an employee or agent at his company. Just from the fact that he decided to include this particular exchange shows his frustration with his job and even his co-workers.
If you look to the right of his blog he has a list of other call center blogs. After referencing those, you can references others. There seems to be a whole community of call center bloggers. After I looked at these I seem to get the feeling that most of these employees are not happy with their jobs. Maybe Cameron was right, call center work stinks...look at these blogs, what do you think?

Blogging for charity

2005-11-16T18:51:00.000-05:00

Advanced Organizational Communication

As I was looking for blogs for my project I came across a website called Instapundit.comthat listed a number of organizations that were using blogs as a way to donate money to charity. This blog post was specifically talking about donating to hurricane Katrina relief. There are many charitable organizations listed such as the American Red Cross, Mennonite Disaster Services, The Humane Society, and many more.

I think its extremely interesting that blogs are being used for this purpose. It shows the progress blogs are making. Blogs are not just a place to vent frustration, but they are being used to connect and inform for a greater good as well.

Blog Searches!

2005-11-15T20:37:00.000-05:00

I had a lot of trouble finding a suitable blog for this project, but looking at these searches and websites last night really helped me out--

Blog Business World has a ton of blog search engines listed on the bottom right when you scroll down. I used "search4blogs" and "blog search directory" to find mine, however I'm sure all of them are good! Even AskJeeves was very helpful if you search for "organization blogs" a few came up that I found useful as well.

Good luck!

A Useful Blogging Website

2005-11-15T16:26:00.000-05:00

This is probably more user-friendly than the two websites we discussed in class today. I came across this site after checking out the blog that Leigh mentioned in class today, it's at www.icerocket.com

Its basically a blog search engine, and also allows you to look at trends. And yes, it does include our own blog postings.

Corporate Blogging and Transparency or Corporate Blogging and Sincerity?

2005-11-15T16:14:00.000-05:00

As the discussion about "synthetic transparency" has gone on, I started to wonder whether transparency is the only issue we should be talking about, or if it is just one issue among others. For example, it seems to me that people look to company blogs to get a sense that the company is "human," or that there are real people at the company, or that the company is one we feel like we can "relate to." Thus, should we be talking about a sense of sincerity rather than transparency as a criterion to assess blogs? We can always talk about both, of course, or others, but what's the most important?

Findory Neighbors

2005-11-15T16:01:00.000-05:00

Here is the link to the site we discussed in class -- Findory Neighbors. You can learn more about this at from Steve Rubel's post on Ten Blogging Hacks (Hack #7).

Steve Rubel Tells Us How To Find Corporate Bloggers

2005-11-15T09:16:00.000-05:00

If there are students who are still looking for corporate bloggers as part of the Blog Analysis Assignment, see Steve Rubel's excellent suggestions:

There are lots of corporate bloggers out there. They just may be hard to find because they are not sanctioned bloggers. They blog on personal sites, but occasionally they mention where they work.

Here's a tip. To find these bloggers simply search for “I work for [insert company name here]” in quotes as I have it here and you will find bloggers. Some might be spam blogs and others might be lying, but many of them are the real deal.

For example, I found: Ford bloggers, HP bloggers, AOL bloggers, Disney bloggers and believe it or not, Dell bloggers.

McDonaldization

2005-11-13T21:57:00.000-05:00

Recently in class we have been discussing the growing trend toward McDonaldization, which was elaborated on in Cameron's book. Cameron's book also briefly mentioned George Ritzer's study on McDonaldization. Coincidentally, in my Sociology of Work class we are discussing similar concepts and have read excerpts from Ritzer's work. Ritzer talks about how McDonaldization has led to an increase in "McJobs" which relies mostly on teenage, part-time workers and minorities. McJobs are also low paying jobs and they entail simple tasks and predictable work.

Moreover, I thought Ritzer made a very interesting point in his piece about customers becoming more involved in the labor process. For example, he points out that things like ATM machines and Self-Service gas stations are requiring the customer to do more work then ever before. Do you think that increasing customer involvement is a good practice or more importantly, an ethical practice?

Please Note the Question Mark: Not All Corporate Blogging Constitutes "Synthetic Transparency"

2005-11-11T23:08:00.000-05:00

I am excited to see that several bloggers have visited our class blog and picked up on my post "Corporate Blogging as Synthetic Transparency?"

Please note that question mark in the title of my original post.

I am not claiming that all corporate blogging constitutes "synthetic transparency." For example, one blogger stated that I claimed all corporate blogging represents synthetic transparency, suggested that I made an "illogical leap," that my post represents "anti-establishment rhetoric," and indirectly suggested that I fit the bill for a favorite phrase among teachers of all kinds -- "Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach." Ouch! In this blogger's favor he makes the excellent point that all communication is selective, which I agree with. Here's my response:

Hi Kip,

Thanks for your comments on our class blog. I agree with you on one point and would also ask that you read the whole of my post on another. First, the part I agree with you on is this: blogging, like all forms of communication, is necessarily a selective activity. In fact, I have made the same point myself in the "Inaugural Post" of my own blog "Word Of Mouth Communication Study." Here's what I wrote:

"Although blogs are exercises in transparency and openness (selection) we must also recognize that they are equally practices of deflection (as the rhetorician Kenneth Burke reminds us). Of course, the deflections, absences, omissions, or silences need not necessarily be borne of ill intent, but certainly they represent alternative rhetorical versions and visions of how things are or could be. This tension between openness and closedness is one I hope to reflect on in this blog, especially as it relates to the construction of personal and institutional identities."

Second, I invite you to read my whole post on synthetic transparency. Here's what I wrote at the end of my post and what many who have picked up on the notion have missed:

"Please note that I have a cautious sense of optimism about the potential for blogging to create a greater sense of openness and transparency in corporate communication efforts. So I introduce this phrase to give us a way to call out companies who are not using blogs to their fullest, and ideal(istic), potential."

Not all corporate blogging activity constitutes "synthetic transparency." However, I see blogging gaining momentum among companies and I want to help ensure companies are doing it for the right reasons. I introduced this term as a way of empowering people to call out firms who are just using blogs because they hear "everyone else is doing it" or are not really committed to the ideals espoused by blogging. Like all terms, there is nothing inherently "synthetic" about blogging, just like there is nothing inherently "authentic" about it either. Both terms do not have intrinsic meanings; rather, those meanings shift over time subject to the agreements (and disagreements) within and among discourse communities.

Thanks again for your interest!

Walter (aka, Dr. Carl)

How do you make employees care?

2005-11-11T10:49:00.000-05:00

Dr. Carl’s idea of synthetic transparency and our talk about scripts and call centers in Cameron’s book made me critically rethink organizational culture and organizational identity. When a company has ideals and a direction they want their company to go, is it wrong for them to encourage their employees to act a certain way? Even if it’s completely fake? All I can think about is checking out at a chain grocery store. Those are not happy people for the most part and I often leave thinking how they could’ve cared less that I was there (not that they need to) but a smile or a "have a nice night" would’ve been a little more encouraging. Though if they’re reading it off of a sticker on their register, I’m not sure that’s any better either. I don’t know what the right answer is but it has to be a combination of finding employees that believe in the values of the company or the right motivation from the management. Is scripting so bad for employees that wouldn’t bother to acknowledge the customer otherwise?

I don’t know how I feel one way or the other, I would like to think every employee cares but I know that’s not the case so I wanted to see if anyone had any insight into this phenomenon.

Corporate Blogging as Synthetic Transparency?

2005-11-08T17:40:00.000-05:00

The purpose of this post is to introduce a new phrase (or at least I think it is) into the discourse about corporate blogging -- synthetic transparency. Synthetic transparency involves using blogs to give the impression of openness, honesty, and transparency but without really doing so.

This notion is based on Norman Fairclough's* idea of "synthetic personalization"** which he defines as:

... a compensatory tendency to give the impression of treating each of the people 'handled' en masse as an individual. Examples would be air travel (have a nice day!), restaurants (Welcome to Wimpy!) and the simulated conversation (for example, chat shows) and bonhomie which litter the media. (p. 62)

Of course companies can engage in all kinds of practices, besides blogging, to give a false sense of openness. However, given the purported sense of transparency that blogs are supposed to provide, we should be especially attentive.

Please note that I have a cautious sense of optimism about the potential for blogging to create a greater sense of openness and transparency in corporate communication efforts. So I introduce this phrase to give us a way to call out companies who are not using blogs to their fullest, and ideal(istic), potential.

---

* Fairclough, Norman (1989). Language and Power. London: Longman.

** Also see Deborah Cameron's use of synthetic personalization as applied to customer care philosophies and practices in organizations. Cameron, Deborah (2000). Good to Talk? Living and Working in a Communication Culture. London: Sage.

The Customer is Always Right

2005-11-08T17:18:00.000-05:00

Today in class we were discussing customer service and the relatively new The Customer is Always Right policy that many companies have adopted. For the past three years, I have been working in the front-end of Stew Leonard's which for those of you who do not know, is a huge animated grocery store in Connecticut and New York (there are only three of them). At Stew Leonard's there are two main rules that almost every customer and employee lives by: 1) The customer is always right 2) If the customer is wrong, re-read rule number one. As you can probably see, this store will do anything and everything to please the customers and that is one of the main reasons why Stew Leonard's is so well-known throughout New England.

My experiences working at Stew's have been mostly positive for the most part because the working environment is very encouraging and optimistic. However, as someone mentioned in class today, there comes a point when customers start to abuse their rights. I have had frustrating experiences with customers because they feel they can get away with anything because "the customer is always right." An extreme example of this is when customers think they can steal from the store or lie about product prices because, "hey, they are always right." I think there is a fine line between companies providing excellent customer service to their customers and letting customers do whatever they please. What do you guys think?

Corporate Blogging: Is It Worth the Hype?

2005-11-03T00:21:00.000-05:00

While reading the article by Backbone dealing with corporate blogging, I found the results to the question, "How quickly did you see the results from your blog on the following factors..." very interesting. For the majority of the factors listed, the companies who had blogs saw results from the blog within the first week. This surprised me because I thought it would take much longer for the companies to see changes and reactions from the blogs then after just one week of participating in blogging. This really proved to me that corporate blogging can be very influential and effective if used correctly for organizations. What do you think about this?

blogging ban

2005-10-27T17:44:00.000-04:00

I was just at my computer doing some work with the news in the background and heard a quick story about how a school principal banned his students from blogging because he wants to protect them from predators. I tried to find the story on the news stations website but couldn't. Brings up interresting points...are blogs potentially dangerous? Does the principal have the right to make such a ban?