For implementation success, say analysts and practitioners like Roman who have championed the technology, you'll need enterprise-worthy blogging tools and test group members who become believers and ideally will evangelize the technology. If successful, blogs could be the first critical building block in a group of Web-based applications to help spawn horizontal collaboration across the enterprise.

Clearing the Reputation Hurdle

One starting hurdle: Blogs still suffer a reputation problem within large enterprises (and even small and medium-size businesses), analysts say. Many people carry a narrow view of what blogs can accomplish. "People are hung up on this concept of the blog as a diary and as an external marketing medium," says Charman. "There are actually very practical uses for blogs internally."

At a large company, the people most likely to have this narrow view of blogs are the C-level executives themselves. How can you combat this misconception? In the beginning of a blog effort, Bell Canada's Roman says, companies should consider avoiding the word blog altogether and use a euphemism. "Calling it something like an idea board can be good start," he says. "That's less threatening than saying, 'I want to start a virtual water cooler where people can blog and discuss new products.'"

It's also important to address security and compliance issues from the start, Roman notes. Bell Canada addressed those concerns by building the blog behind the corporate firewall. Remote workers can access it only through the corporate intranet using a virtual private network (VPN). "The executives are immediately concerned about legality," he says. "So you lay out what the rules of engagement will be. That makes them more comfortable with going forward."

Start Small

While blogs are typically most useful when many users participate, analysts and practitioners say you're better off to start small. Blogs work well when they catch on virally, and you need to introduce the idea to the right test group, who will then evangelize the idea to the rest of the enterprise.

Sometimes, that test group has already given up on enterprise tools, as Dr Mark Greenhalgh recently learned. Greenhalgh, a family physician, sought a test group for his social networking portal (which includes a blogging feature) launching as part of an initiative funded by the United Kingdom's department of health. The best candidate turned out to be what IT managers would call a "rogue IT" group (one that seeks out a consumer-grade technology to help do its jobs when enterprise tools disappoint). The Public Health Commissioning

Network — a group of 200 physicians who allocate scarce funds for drugs, technology and research — had taken to using a Yahoo discussion forum to avoid long, tangled e-mail threads. While the forum was password protected, Greenhalgh says the doctors needed something better. "They have pretty sensitive talks and they need to keep it reasonably quiet," he says.