The Internal Communicator’s Guide to Blogging

Exclusive presentation
The Hub for Internal Communicators

Alex Manchester
New Media Editor, Melcrum Publishing
alex.manchester@melcrum.com
Today’s objectives…

What are blogs? Who’s using them

and how?

Barclays - Group CEO

Sun Microsystems - CEO

Microsoft - Employees

General Motors - Board

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Considerations…

Considerations…

How and why are blogs relevant to you as internal communicators?

What are the benefits?

What are the risks?

How can you adopt them?

What are the potential implications of not adopting them?

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What makes social media so popular?

Easy and cheap to use

Proliferation of broadband and mobile web

You choose what/who you want to read/listen to/watch

Connects people across the world - instantly

(the global watercooler effect)

People trust each other before they trust “the organization”

Everyone can have a voice – if it’s a powerful message, it will be heard

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Internal Communication: Then and Now…

Then… Now…
Transmitting a message Engage, participate, be involved

Command and control Influence and persuade

Tell your audience Build a community

Vs
Formal and instructive Informal and conversational

= one way conversation = two-way conversation

(no other options) (lots of options)

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Definition of a blog

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…blogs

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How are employees and CEOs using blogs?

Positioning themselves and their company as the thought leaders of

their industry

Personalising customer relationships

Providing context when there is news - good or bad

Fostering internal collaboration and knowledge sharing

Enhancing your organization’s appearance

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 Paul Ottelini’s blog…

“Why am I doing this?

Well, it seemed like a good idea to
be able to create an ongoing vehicle
[my blog] to share my thoughts and
observations on Intel and our
industry with our employees, and to
allow you an opportunity to have a
platform for your thoughts or
responses.”

Paul Otellini
CEO, Intel Corporation
“seemed like a good idea to…
share my thoughts… and to
allow you an opportunity to
have a platform for your
thoughts or responses.”

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Interactive diaries @ Barclays

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Barlcays Group CEO personal diary…

Writing on…

Group Ambition

Required Benchmarks

Examples of best practice and
updates across the group

Life outside of Barclays

Works with the help of an executive
assistant

Two-way conversation

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Barclays: How has this worked?

In the annual survey…

Perception of Senior Leaders

continues to improve

Increased 7% per year since

2003

Powerful leadership tool

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Blogging @ General Motors

Senior leaders

First one, then many
more board members

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CEO blog @ Sun Microsystems

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CEO blog @ Sun Microsystems
Why am I doing this, starting a blog?

First, I'm a big believer in the idea that innovation is self-sustaining when it loses its
predictability. I figured I'd do my part to promote self-sustenance.

Second, to change the format and fidelity with which what I say is transcribed. No more
comments from the pundits "in context." Now you get them straight from me.

Third, to get unfiltered feedback from the community. If you want to reach me, I'm
"jonathan.i.schwartz at sun.com". I promise to read it all, but please don't count on responses
(I'm a bit deluged already).What should you expect in my blog?

Relatively frequent updates. Less frequently when I'm on airplanes (which is sadly quite a lot -
can't wait for truly pervasive connections).

You'll see thoughts on the future (but absolutely no forward looking statements - for all insight
into our business performance, please refer to our regularly scheduled filings at the SEC).
Thoughts on my favorite Web services. Even good reading. Maybe good eating. This is an
evolving medium, time will tell.I promise to listen - from all the constituencies we serve
(customers, stockholders, developers, consumers, suppliers... all).

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Are you moving fast enough?

November 2005: 34 Million blogs

November 2006: ???

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Are you moving fast enough?

November 2005: 34 Million blogs

November 2006: 57 million blogs

Current growth:
More than one new blog every second

100,000 per day*•

* Just public - not including the thousands of internal blogs

• Technorati statistics

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Why blog? Summary…

• Opens dialogue with audience

• Proven effective senior leadership tool

• Provides a platform to speak on the record

• Can put news in context - good or bad

• Enables a company to be more transparent

• Makes sound business sense to communicate easily

• Relatively cheap, easy and not time consuming to set up and maintain

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Where to start?

• Don’t be scared, experiment and see for yourself

• Search Technorati for subjects and mentions of your organization

• Launch an internal blog and get the conversation started

• Ask yourself what you want to do as a communicator…

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URLs:

Blog Resources:

Technorati: www.technorati.com

Wordpress: www.wordpress.org

Typepad: www.typepad.com

Blogger: www.blogger.com

Blogs

Debbie Weil: www.blogwriteforceos.com

Jonathan Schwartz: blogs.sun.com/jonathan/

Black Belt Dojo: www.blackbeltdojo.co.uk

Hill & Knowlton: http://blogs.hillandknowlton.com/blogs/

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Further resources…

Top 10 New Transform

Technologies for your intranet
The Hub for Internal Internal
Communicators Communicators

Alex Manchester
New Media Editor, Melcrum Publishing
alex.manchester@melcrum.com
Further resources…

The Cluetrain
Naked Manifsto
The corporate blogging book Conversations By Doc
By Debbie Weil By Robert Scoble Searles &
& Shel Israel David
Weinberger

Alex Manchester
New Media Editor, Melcrum Publishing
alex.manchester@melcrum.com
Thank you for listening…

Alex Manchester
New Media Editor, Melcrum Publishing
alex.manchester@melcrum.com