Perils and Pitfalls

"Weblogs can be used by businesses in a crisis to provide timely, accurate information to customers and business partners," Matsuura says. "So for example, some software companies have apparently made use of blogs when bugs or security problems have been discovered in their products."

One recent example of the use of blogs to handle a crisis comes not from a pure business application, but from the US presidential campaign. Howard Dean's campaign for the nomination of the Democratic Party made effective use of the Internet, but when his performance in the early primary elections was very disappointing, his campaign supporters used blogs as one of the methods to try to save his campaign. As history records, while effective in the short term, ultimately it did not work.

However, businesses that permit inaccurate or misleading information to appear in their blogs can create a public relations disaster, Matsuura says. "The trick is to make sure that all of the information provided in the blog is accurate and current. That is not an easy task," he says. "The leading 'perils and pitfalls' for blogs are fairly obvious. Blogs must have accurate, timely, useful content. If a blog does not have that type of valuable content, it is useless. If a business does not commit the resources necessary to maintaining the blog effectively, there is no real purpose to launching one in the first place."

The irony is, as Arnold points out, that blogs can be most successful in organizations that do not need them, for instance where: there are effective policies for use of the corporate intranet; staff can access information in electronic and print formats (with appropriate protection of sensitive data); expertise is identifiable; and information travels within and across silos. Those organizations are already making effective use of mechanisms such as newsletters, meetings, manuals and e-mail. Blogging within those organizations is essentially a way of leveraging the expertise and enthusiasm of key staff. Blogging aimed at readers outside the organization might reflect the charisma of corporate representatives or a clear business case that there is a tangible readership (most blogs are read by the author, the author's dog or cat and author's mum) sufficient for investment of PR resources.

"We disagree with some of the gurus when we suggest that the value in dysfunctional or semi-functional organizations depends on expectations and investment," Arnold says.

"If you want to build a team there may be better ways than having a team leader publish a daily diary or building the 'digital tree house'. Having a keyboard doesn't make you an author or make what you write worth reading. Blogging may serve as an ice-breaker in corporate change, a new mechanism for knowledge transfer. Equally it can just be a waste of time, with an expert instead copying an e-mail to contacts across the organization or making a note that can be accessed electronically after she moves on in the next round of cubicle roulette."

The pitfalls are those of any corporate publishing effort. Blogging occurs in the same universe where organizations use e-mail, release media statements, develop manuals and issue newsletters.

Compliance officers are concerned about issues such as defamation, harassment, improper release of financial information (think US Sarbanes-Oxley Act, particularly if you operate offshore), erosion of trade secrets and the sort of advertorial that has recently attracted ACCC criticism.

Internal and external public relations people question the wisdom of blurring or undermining a carefully honed corporate image by allowing staff to comment publicly on the organization, its competitors and regulators. Operations managers question whether there is an appropriate ROI from having staff write about their day, annotate electronic news clips or get into a flame war.

Network custodians worry about support for bloggers while busy managing content management systems, e-mail, groupware, virus protection and corporate Web sites. Staff roll their eyes at the inanities of the blog by the adjacent work unit, the latest vision from the CEO's guru (particularly if it coincides with another announcement about rightsizing) or the expectation that they will blog instead of doing "real" work with real targets. Others simply shrug as the enterprise embraces the latest fad, knowing that the internal blog will be digital leaf litter within two years.

"A starting point is a clear and coherent policy about who can engage in enterprise blogging (and how), with an understanding of expectations about blogging that doesn't take place under the organization's auspices but does use corporate time and facilities or that might be construed as representing the organization," Arnold says.

Gartner's Carolan has another tip.

"When creating a new corporate blog we found it very helpful to clearly establish roles and responsibilities before the first post is published," he says. "Editors need to let contributors convey their passion or emotion for a subject. Blog contributors need to respect the judgment of the editor on what posts do and don't make it to the blog. I would also recommend having a plan in place for starting, maintaining and retiring a blog - before you start."