Mark Jones continues to raise some very significant, though subtle issues here. (A link to his post is in the heading)
To blog or not to blog appears to be a vexing question for many corporations at the moment. It's a topic of several conversations in which I have both participated and heard about lately.
The agenda is a mixture of:
Regulating the blogging activity of employees; maintaing the appearance of fairness and openness; protecting stakeholder interests; and supporting a modern day civil liberty (the right to virtually congregate.)
Under the cloak of the blogsphere, some executives can be brave, or at least a little braver than they might be in other "more traditional" communication channels.
I grieve the circumstance where bloggers are gagged - or worse, deliberately spin company lines and attempt to appear "open.”
Like any channel of communication we have a duty to not abuse it by damaging others, but it emerges as a significant pillar of our democracy, along with off the record conversations with journalists.
Showing posts with label blogging. Show all posts
Showing posts with label blogging. Show all posts
Thursday, July 20, 2006
Thursday, June 29, 2006
To blog, or not to blog
I have recently started a new position with an ICT research organisation, with responsibility for its online communication channels.
It's a role that is still being defined in many organisations, one that recognises the need for someone who straddles the "IT" and "Business" or "Corporate Comms" functions of website development together with project management.
It is as though the experiences of my last five years have prepared me for this job. I have been devoted to learning all that I can about the implementation of content management systems, the conflicting requirements of internal users and target audiences as well as the nuances of project managing in an environment where stakeholder interests range from mild to intense, even hostile.
In the user needs discovery phase of my new website redevelopment, I am faced with a new, and possibly not-too-uncommon dilemma - to blog or not to blog... That is the question! (apologies Mr Shakespeare)
As a knowledge organisation, do we encourage our research staff to blog? Do we facilitate it? Do the opinions of blogsites originators carry more credence or liability if they identify themselves with their employer? Does a Microsoft or Sun employee's blog carry with it some higher value, and therefor responsibility? What about the ensuing comments? Who's responsible for anonymous defamatory comments on a blog site? (Jason Akermanis, for one, would like to know!)
We find ourselves in a murky area where "mainstream publishers," lawyers, Internet service providers and litigious plaintiffs are circling.
To some degree, I say "blog and be dammed," but I find myself staring down a queue of bloggers whose online activity I can either support, promote, facilitate and in some way, moderate or pretend it's not there, keep it underground. And not only do I want these people to continue to produce content of value for our website, I need to find an appropriate response, a viable policy about enterprise blogging.
Does blogging dilute the value of the enterprise website? Where do blogsites fit in the context of user experience.
Perhaps we are not far from a time when real knowledge organisations truly reflect the aggregated knowledge of its workers and then some, if the sum of the parts is truly greater than the whole. Do such websites become well dressed portals to hundreds of blogsites? Or like Sun Microsystems do we aggregate and index the top 50 staff blog sites?
To blog or not to blog is NOT the question. It's how do the knowledge sector enterprise stakeholders leverage it, manage the risks and maintain some shred of freedom of collaborative open thought and discussion.
To squeeze one more pun into this post, the cat is clearly out of the blog.
Blogging
It's a role that is still being defined in many organisations, one that recognises the need for someone who straddles the "IT" and "Business" or "Corporate Comms" functions of website development together with project management.
It is as though the experiences of my last five years have prepared me for this job. I have been devoted to learning all that I can about the implementation of content management systems, the conflicting requirements of internal users and target audiences as well as the nuances of project managing in an environment where stakeholder interests range from mild to intense, even hostile.
In the user needs discovery phase of my new website redevelopment, I am faced with a new, and possibly not-too-uncommon dilemma - to blog or not to blog... That is the question! (apologies Mr Shakespeare)
As a knowledge organisation, do we encourage our research staff to blog? Do we facilitate it? Do the opinions of blogsites originators carry more credence or liability if they identify themselves with their employer? Does a Microsoft or Sun employee's blog carry with it some higher value, and therefor responsibility? What about the ensuing comments? Who's responsible for anonymous defamatory comments on a blog site? (Jason Akermanis, for one, would like to know!)
We find ourselves in a murky area where "mainstream publishers," lawyers, Internet service providers and litigious plaintiffs are circling.
To some degree, I say "blog and be dammed," but I find myself staring down a queue of bloggers whose online activity I can either support, promote, facilitate and in some way, moderate or pretend it's not there, keep it underground. And not only do I want these people to continue to produce content of value for our website, I need to find an appropriate response, a viable policy about enterprise blogging.
Does blogging dilute the value of the enterprise website? Where do blogsites fit in the context of user experience.
Perhaps we are not far from a time when real knowledge organisations truly reflect the aggregated knowledge of its workers and then some, if the sum of the parts is truly greater than the whole. Do such websites become well dressed portals to hundreds of blogsites? Or like Sun Microsystems do we aggregate and index the top 50 staff blog sites?
To blog or not to blog is NOT the question. It's how do the knowledge sector enterprise stakeholders leverage it, manage the risks and maintain some shred of freedom of collaborative open thought and discussion.
To squeeze one more pun into this post, the cat is clearly out of the blog.
Blogging
Saturday, April 29, 2006
Blog your way to recovery
Imagine the scenario. You have survived a serious car accident. You are in hospital for an extended stay – surgeries, physio, medication and extensive healing required.
Amidst your pain and treatment, your hospital carer sets you up with a patient blog site.
If it was me in the body brace and bandages, I suspect the last thing I would be thinking about is sharing my thoughts on a blog.
Well this is the reality for a dear friend, Michelle in a hospital in Fargo North Dakota, USA
Clever people these hospital carers. One way or another, Michelle gets her “story” out and so begins the Internet element of her healing.
A not-for-profit organisation called CaringBridge, inspired by personal tragedy, has made it possible for 38,000 hospital patients to receive five million guest book messages and 235 million virtual visits. Who knows how significant millions of expressions of love and support for people at one of their lowest points of their life could be?
Instant virtual community of friends and family are connected via her site, and all are able to keep up-to-date and in some way participate in her recovery.
My friend Michelle has received hundreds of messages. She has a long way to go in her recovery, and her CaringBridge site will be part of it via her individual journal, guestbook, photos, tributes and links.
Amidst your pain and treatment, your hospital carer sets you up with a patient blog site.
If it was me in the body brace and bandages, I suspect the last thing I would be thinking about is sharing my thoughts on a blog.Well this is the reality for a dear friend, Michelle in a hospital in Fargo North Dakota, USA
Clever people these hospital carers. One way or another, Michelle gets her “story” out and so begins the Internet element of her healing.
A not-for-profit organisation called CaringBridge, inspired by personal tragedy, has made it possible for 38,000 hospital patients to receive five million guest book messages and 235 million virtual visits. Who knows how significant millions of expressions of love and support for people at one of their lowest points of their life could be?
Instant virtual community of friends and family are connected via her site, and all are able to keep up-to-date and in some way participate in her recovery.
My friend Michelle has received hundreds of messages. She has a long way to go in her recovery, and her CaringBridge site will be part of it via her individual journal, guestbook, photos, tributes and links.
Friday, April 28, 2006
ANZACS and Living in a TRADITIONAL Internet Age
We just celebrated – if that’s the right word – ANZAC Day in Australia (April 25), a day that is not only the most universally acknowledged national holiday in Australia (quite a few people have issues with “Australia day”), but one that continues to attract cross generational appeal.
The story of incredible loss and sacrifice combined with courage and a barely understood quality called Aussie mateship gave rise to the ANZAC spirit. It took another world war and more than twenty years before a fledgling tradition was claimed.
Those who were there at the time remember. Those who grew up with the aforementioned and heard the stories honour them. Those who are not connected by family links to ANZACS have learned to respect what it all means. And now, two or three generations on, ANZAC Day is a time-honoured tradition.
As my first post, and with respect, hopefully not my last post, I have been wondering what it takes to establish a time-honoured tradition. For many, the concept of Internet time has changed the reference points for time. We have come to expect information, goods and services, relationships, transactions, education, negotiations, consultations, aggregations and almost every other *ation to be available instantly. The concept of delayed gratification is academic or even quaint.
This is not a rant about Internet time, just a slowly cooked opinion that time and tradition are NOT relative terms, nor can either be hurried up. We live in an age that readily dismisses traditions or traditional approaches, yet one that desperately wants to establish them. I’ve heard the qualifier “traditionally” applied to sporting teams with barely a decade of history, to TV talent shows after three consecutive seasons (can anyone name our first three Australian Idols), and even to computer operating systems (ahh Windows 3.x).
Will any of our stories of today become true traditions? What will the benchmark for “time-honoured” be? My guess is that we will find tenuous links being made to or claimed as traditions. On a global scale, traditions can be established as quickly as a major act of terrorism or some natural catastrophe occurs.
But tradition is not a currency easily acquired. While the Internet, and especially Web 2.x offers us who are blessed to live in a free and technology accessible nation the chance to share it, learn it and even influence it a little, I just wonder what traditions we will leave behind us.
Perhaps in a generation or two, people will be reading these blogs in the same way we flick through our grandparents’ letters or diaries from a bygone time.
For any traditionalist who happens to land on this blog, hang in there, grab on to your seat, enjoy the ride, and know that YOUR knowledge of time-honoured tradition can not be overtaken. Who knows, it might be up to you to pass on the tradition.
Let’s hope it’s not only by blog or email.
The story of incredible loss and sacrifice combined with courage and a barely understood quality called Aussie mateship gave rise to the ANZAC spirit. It took another world war and more than twenty years before a fledgling tradition was claimed.
Those who were there at the time remember. Those who grew up with the aforementioned and heard the stories honour them. Those who are not connected by family links to ANZACS have learned to respect what it all means. And now, two or three generations on, ANZAC Day is a time-honoured tradition.
As my first post, and with respect, hopefully not my last post, I have been wondering what it takes to establish a time-honoured tradition. For many, the concept of Internet time has changed the reference points for time. We have come to expect information, goods and services, relationships, transactions, education, negotiations, consultations, aggregations and almost every other *ation to be available instantly. The concept of delayed gratification is academic or even quaint.
This is not a rant about Internet time, just a slowly cooked opinion that time and tradition are NOT relative terms, nor can either be hurried up. We live in an age that readily dismisses traditions or traditional approaches, yet one that desperately wants to establish them. I’ve heard the qualifier “traditionally” applied to sporting teams with barely a decade of history, to TV talent shows after three consecutive seasons (can anyone name our first three Australian Idols), and even to computer operating systems (ahh Windows 3.x).
Will any of our stories of today become true traditions? What will the benchmark for “time-honoured” be? My guess is that we will find tenuous links being made to or claimed as traditions. On a global scale, traditions can be established as quickly as a major act of terrorism or some natural catastrophe occurs.
But tradition is not a currency easily acquired. While the Internet, and especially Web 2.x offers us who are blessed to live in a free and technology accessible nation the chance to share it, learn it and even influence it a little, I just wonder what traditions we will leave behind us.
Perhaps in a generation or two, people will be reading these blogs in the same way we flick through our grandparents’ letters or diaries from a bygone time.
For any traditionalist who happens to land on this blog, hang in there, grab on to your seat, enjoy the ride, and know that YOUR knowledge of time-honoured tradition can not be overtaken. Who knows, it might be up to you to pass on the tradition.
Let’s hope it’s not only by blog or email.
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