Inside the Cubicle

Jamie Chabra - CEO Blog at Bob Evans Farms

Jamie Chabra, Web site administrator for Bob Evans Farms, shared a great success story of how the company used an internal blog to introduce new CEO Steve Davis to the organization.

- Blogs are a powerful way to overcome decentralization in an organization.

- Benefits of an internal blog:

• Insights of other employees
• Access to executives
  • Pictures
  • Personal Stories
  • Creating a community - people started using the comment section to share best practices. They responded to each other's comments

- The only thing they have ever had to edit is profanity - and only had to do it once. An employee said, "This blog sucks Donkey S#@!" and they kept "This blog sucks" and then Steve responded to ask why he felt that way.

- One of the reasons that employees are so active in the blog is that in posts Steve recognizes great ideas from employees.

- The people who are most active read the blog from home, so immediacy of responding to comments is not a huge issue.

- One of the benefits of the blogging is the archiving, so they can go back and find the information.

- They are not worried about blog content getting leaked because there is nothing business sensitive on the blog.

- Personal voice + Accessibility + Relevant and timely information = Employee Engagement. This is the "Blogging Success Equation."

- Everyone has an agenda: Communications, authors, IT, Legal. You have to meet in the middle and it is best to do this up front.

- Before they started, they searched for conversations online from employees. This gave them an idea of what to talk about.

A blog author must:

• Have something to say
• Embrace the idea
• Care about what they say
• Care about comments
• Balance work and personal
• Sustain practices

The author doesn't have to be a CEO.

- Do your research and compare the blog to other internal communications tools.

Time:
   - 5 to 30 minutes per day
   - Same as drafting an e-mail
   - Small price to pay for continuity in the organization

Cost:
Less than $200 a year

Create your process
- Little bureaucracy
- Communicate quickly
- No sterilization
- Minimal approval process

To build credibility
- Embrace it
- Expose the personal side
- Must align with company culture
- Position it as "the place" to find the information
- Update it frequently

Drive the "water-cooler conversation"

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Technorati Tags: Bob+Evans, Chabra, Steve+Davis, CEO, blog

Second Fortune 500 blog

Yes, I am a couple weeks late posting about this, but for those who didn't notice Bill Marriott, chairman and CEO of Marriott International recently became the second Fortune 500 CEO to blog publicly, at Marriott on the Move.

(Jonathan Schwartz of Sun Microsystems is the first, but he can be more accurately be described as a blogger who became a CEO as opposed to a CEO who decided to blog)

What do I like about this blog?

It proves you don't have to be a techie - In his first post Marriott says, "Truth be told, I'm not very good with computers." In fact, he records each post as an MP3 and has his staff transcribe them. You can either read each post, or listen to the man himself talk.

It is current - Right now, the blog is updated every two to three days, which is an impressive pace for an executive. Marriott claims he visits 250 hotels a year and his posts seem to be based around where he happens to be at the time.

His recent post on a bombing at a Marriott hotel in Islamabad represents everything great about blogging: immediate, unfiltered, human, community building, personal.

It doesn't try to be all things to all people - Yes, the blog extols the benefits of Marriott, but it is a corporate vehicle so that is expected - and it does so with humor and personality and apparent sincerity. They tackle some tough issues (the decline in American tourism) and promise to tackle more in the future (immigration policy).

No, they do not respond to all the comments (in fact, they respond to very few), but they do respond to several relevant questions and suggestions. When they do respond, it clearly states that the individual writing is speaking on behalf of Bill Marriott itself.

One thing I'd like to see is different - Diversity of authors. They have mentioned already that this is likely to come, and I look forward to it. As one commentor said, "One more tip - if you do bring in multiple authors consider some 'non senior vips.' I would love to read what a Bell Captain has to say about life at the front door."

Southwest does a great job of this on their blog, with posts from pilots, flight attendents, executives and a variety of staff.

That Marriott would enter the blogosphere is no accident.

Marriott understands relationships. They are 89th on this year's "Fortune's 100 Best Companies to Work for List," their tenth consecutive year on the list. Employees average 112 hours of training a year, with much of that based around bringing to life the company's values. They have instituted ESL classes to help Spanish-speaking employees better communicate to other staff and improve professional development.

Bill Marriott describes his impetus for blogging quite simply in his first post: 

"I know this is where the action is if you want to talk to your customers directly -- and hear back from them."

Sounds about right to me...

One more tip - if you do bring in multiple authors consider some "non senior vips." I would love to read what a Bell Captain has to say about life at the front door.

http://bill-marriott.blogs.marriott.com/default.asp?item=458067

Internal Communications Channels Study

Today, Edelman Change and Employee Engagement (my practice) publicly released the third annual "New Frontiers in Employee Communications" study (If you don't want to read 32 pages, you can check out the main findings in the release).

Let me get several things out of the way:

1. I was heavily involved in the research and writing of this work. This is one of the few times that I will ever use this blog to discuss work that I have done. (The disclaimer on the right still applies here)
2. The purpose of this study is to examine the use and effectiveness of internal communications channels; although it spends a great deal of time discussing new media tools the hope is to provide a comprehensive picture of the different channels available to corporate communicators.
3. This is not a scientific study. While we concentrated on a small sample (Fortune 500 and large, global companies) in hopes of being able to generalize to that group, we probably received a disproportionate number of participants from companies engaged in new media initiatives. Also, because so few companies have implemented new media, the sample size for some individual questions is relatively low. In other words, do not take these results as gospel; draw your own conclusions based on the findings and methodology.
4. Like most studies that have looked at corporate use of new media, the answers tend to be biased toward a neutral response. In other words, a lot of people say "I don't know," or rate things as a three on a five-point scale.

What I think is important from the study:

• Corporate communicators need to become better educated about the variety of channels available to them. It is not enough to leave it up to the self-proclaimed "new media" experts. In a year or so, this stuff will not be "new" anymore.
• A lot more organizations are using new media than you would think - only they are doing it internally where the risks are lower and there is a more immediate and tangible effect on the business.
• If I were to put my money on the channel that will have the greatest impact on businesses it would be wikis, as they are the most dynamic of the tools.
• It is critical that all communications channels be viewed as part of an integrated communications strategy. When this occurs, employees get relevant content with context. When communications are fragmented, employees just get a lot of noise.
• Internal communications strategy will be a key differentiator for organizations as they battle for the next generation of talent.

How does this study stack up?

Previously on this blog, I have been critical of other studies of corporate new media use. I stand by those comments, and make no claims that this study does not contain many similar flaws. This is a fast-moving space that is hard to effectively track and measure. In order to provide context and let you draw your own conclusions, here are some other works that examine similar issues:

• Makovsky 2006 State of Corporate Blogging Survey (May 2006)

• Northeastern University & Backbone Media Blogging Success Study (November 2006)

• Corporate Blogging Survey 2005: Is It Worth The Hype? (Backbone Media)

• Cymfony and Porter Novelli Corporate Blog Survey (July 2006)

• Weblogs and Employee Communication: Ethical Questions for Corporate Blogging (Institute for Public Relations, June 2006)

• Organizational Blogs and the Human Voice: Relational Strategies and Relational Outcomes (Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, January 2006)

• 2006 Workplace E-Mail, Instant Messaging & Blog Survey (American Management Association and e-Policy Institute, July 2006)

• Fortune 500 Business Blogging Wiki (Socialtext, last updated in October 2006)

• Fortune 500 Blog Project Wiki (Directed by Teresa Valdez Klein of Blog Business Summit and Easton Ellsworth of Know More Media)

• The Hype is Real: Social Media Invades the Inc. 500 (University of Massachusetts Dartmouth Center for Marketing Research, January 2007)

• The Voice of the Blog: The Attitudes and Experiences of Small Business Bloggers Using Blogs as a Marketing and Communications Tool. (Jeffrey Hill, unpublished master's thesis,  University of Liverpool, 2005)

• NewPR Wiki (contains lists of corporate blogs and executive bloggers, ongoing)

• Socialtext Customer Stories (case studies of wiki use from companies such as Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein, Nokia, Ziff Davis and Kodak, ongoing)

If you know of any others, please let me know and I'll add them to the list.

Lastly, my hope is that this study will serve to spur conversations among corporate communicators about how to strategically use internal communications channels to drive business goals and what the role (if any) for new media may be in that mix.  As always, comments, questions and criticism are welcome and I will do my best to provide helpful responses.

Is that a ghost on your blog?

Debbie Weil, who has established herself as one of the premier sources on CEO blogging, instigates a healthy debate on whether it is appropriate for CEOs to have others ghostwrite their blogs, which may be a more popular practice than you think.

There are two questions which she poses on the International Association of Online Communicators blog.

Question 1: Is it okay to ghostwrite a blog
Commenters take - Most thought it is fine to ghostwrite a blog because it is no different than ghostwriting a speech or a letter from the CEO. However, there was concern that blogs are supposed to represent a more genuine form of communication and that this somehow flies in the face of that principle.

My take - Having a ghostwriter publish a post, respond to a comment or leave a comment on another blog on behalf of a CEO, without the CEO directly approving the content as coming from him or her is unethical. It violates the Word of Mouth Marketing Association's guidelines on honesty of identity. This is a bad idea for several reasons:

1. You will likely be outed, which will be embarrassing and make you look silly
2. One of the fundamental aspects of the online space is transparency of identity. It is a key to trust and credibility.
3. It serves little purpose, as a blog by a middle-manager can carry as much weight as that of a CEO (see: Scoble)

Questions #2: Should the ghostblogger reveal him or herself
Commenters take - Probably not, as this would defeat the whole point of having a ghostblogger.

My take - See answer to question #1. If you are going  to have someone write about the CEO's thoughts, he should write, "So I was talking to CEO X the other day..." or some sort of variation of that.

Conclusion: There are reasons why there are not a ton of CEO bloggers. The things that make the blogosphere thrive - candid conversations, rapid responses, interaction with critical audiences - do not led themselves well to the requirements of the position. (See current issue with McDonald's CSR blog involving executive Bob Langert)

The is little to gain, and a lot to lose by trying to fit a CEO into the mold of a blogger by using a ghostwriter.

Here are a few alternative options:
- Have a blog for official statements by the CEO, or a blog that tracks actions of the CEO (visits to sites, interesting meetings). It could be moderated by a staff member who could provide context. Sure, this would not have the personality usually associated with a blog, but any beat reporter would be obligated to pay attention (and subscribe to the RSS)
- Have an executive team blog. This spreads the responsibilities around, provides a diversity of opinions, and makes it easier for people to fully participate
- Don't have the CEO blog. Mid-level or front-line employees are likely to be viewed with less skepticism anyway and they do not carry with them the potential legal and financial consequences of a CEO blogger. In short, they offer less risk and an easier ROI.

 

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Technorati Tags: CEO, blog, Weil

My company almost gets it

Some of you may have noticed that my employer Edelman is working to do some nifty things with its employee-generated social media offerings, putting them all on one landing page.

Time for me to weigh in.

I think this is a great idea in principle. It showcases the thought leadership of individuals in our organization. It helps draw people to the site and helps build relationships with individuals who otherwise may not be aware of a public relations company.

BUT........they are only part of the way there.

Why are there only 17 blogs featured? (full disclosure: my blog will likely be added to the list). There are more than 2,200 employees around the world at Edelman and I refuse to believe that these are the only bloggers out there (In fact, I know they are not.) Who decided what blogs would be featured and what type of outreach did they make to employees?

Ideally, when they decided to move forward with this they would have let all employees know about the idea and invited all bloggers to join. They still have a chance to do this and I hope they do.

The whole point of this should be to build a community of bloggers and showcase the collective voice of the organization, the way the Sun does, or even the way that Edelman competitor Hill & Knowlton does.

Also, the homepage should feature the latest posts, not just descriptions of the blogs. Or maybe, the landing page could feature some type of rating/voting system and the top-rated articles could be pushed up to the homepage.

Additional thoughts:
- The blogs all seem to be written by senior-level employees. While this provides access to some of the great minds in our organization, I'd love to see more middle and entry-level voices.
- I love the global representation. I think it will be interesting to see the issues that arise from different regions.
- It will be interesting to see what happens in terms of post frequency, considering that most of the bloggers are rather sporadic in their posting. There is an increased accountability now as these bloggers represent the company more explicitly. It will look rather silly if they don't update the blogs, link properly or generate comments.

Conclusion: Building a community around social media is not all about the technology. It is not a tool that you turn on and let the magic happen. It involves communication. It involves asking EVERYONE to take part. It involves showing people what you are going to do and explaining why.

I think my employer got a little trigger happy in launching this initiative. This is not a bad thing....it shows a passion for this space, an interest in practicing what we preach, an interest in advancing the field. It is not a bad thing, as long as they listen to what the community has to say.

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Technorati Tags: Edelman, blogs, employees

Southwest employees share a defining moment

Over at the Southwest Blog, they have posted several videos from Southwest employees that were recorded after September 11th, 2001.

These videos are genuine, they are personal and they give us a window into the people that define Southwest. They make me proud to be a Southwest customer.

This is the best of what blogs can do!

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Technorati Tags: Southwest, 9/11, video

Blogs are a lot cheaper than research consultants

Andy Beal points to a report from Jupiter Research that "35 percent of large companies plan to institute corporate Weblogs this year" which they claim will mean that by the end of 2006 nearly 70 percent of these organizations will have blogs.

I haven't read the report (I can't afford to pay for shoddy research on my salary) but a couple things from the release jump out at me.

1. Where do they get the figure that 34 percent of large companies are already blogging? That number seems awfully high to me.

2. Check out this passage: "currently 64 percent of executives spend less than $500,000 to deploy and manage corporate Weblogs."

I want to meet the other 36 percent!!!

I like my job at Edelman, but for $500,000 me and my roommate will create, host and monitor your blog and others 24-hours-a-day.

If you are spending that type of money on a blog, you need to rethink your blogging strategy.

CTC - "Making Sense of Web 2.0: Impact on the Enterprise"

The afternoon breakouts began with Dion Hinchcliffe, editor-in-chief of Web 2.0 Journal, talking about "Making Sense of Web 2.0: Impact on the Enterprise" (He zoomed through the presentation pretty quickly and had a lot of diagrams, so I will try to post the presentation later)

A reductionist view of Web 2.0 - A Read-Write Web + Lots of People Using It = Collective Intelligence

Network Effects - A good or service that has value based on other people having it (e-mail, wikis, etc.)

There are a lot of definitions of Web 2.0s and they are all true in some way.

Aspects of Web 2.0
Stratgic positioning
    - web as a platform
User Positioning
    - you control your own data
Core Compenticies
    - Services, not packaged software
    - Harnessing collective intelligence

Web 2.0 applications are those that make the most of the intrinsic advantages of the platforms. Going beyond the page to the idea of applications

7 tenets of Web 2.0

1. Web as platform - open, reusable Web services, permalinks, syndication
2. Harnessing Collective Intelligence - services that get better, the more people use them
3. Information as the Core Capability, Not Software - Google Maps, "Blogosphere"
4. End of Discrete Software Releases - continous improvement becomes the norm
5. Lightwieght programming models - users can be their own programers
6. Fundamentally federated software systems - examples: iTunes, blogosphere
7. Rich User Experiences - Results found in software are as good as can be found anywhere else

Core competencies of Web 2.0

• Online services, not packaged software, with cost-effective scalability

• Maintaining control over unique, hard to re-create information that gets better with more users

• Trusting your users as co-developers

• Harnessing collective intelligence

• Leveraging The Long Tail

• Lightwieght user interfaces, development models

The most pressing issue facing the enterprise over the next year is the conflict/overlap/reconciliation between SOA and Web 2.0

The simplicity of use and ability to exploit network effects has resulted in enormous online communities.

Now users have extended beyond early adopters and techies. It now has global adoption and blogosphere doubles every six months

Will this happen in the enterprise?
Two pre-requisites to acquiring  knowledge

• Motivation - People will discover that they can help themselves to solve problems and get information
• Context - Understanding concepts and reasons for them. As people become more familiar with benefits it will become more widespread

We should strive for less transactional interactions and more tacit interactions. Tacit interactions provide the largest productivity gains.

Technologies allow us to allocate activities more effieciently between tacit interaction and transactional employees.

Technology to boost the quality, speed and scalability of the decisions employees make.

Applying Web 2.0 to the enterprise
- Low barrier, available anywhere
- Allow users to structure business information (folksonomies over taxonomies)
- Continous bottom-up management by end-users
- Business processes exposed as Web services (or at least a feed)
- Easy inclusion of external Web services (outside-in)
- Based on portable, recognized standards
- Web 2.0 style collaboration (Wikis, Visible Path, etc.)

Adding enterprise "context" to blogs - Question is whether this stuff eliminates benefits of blogging
- Enterprise Integrated Secruity
- Approval Process for Posts and New Users
- Content Auditing (preferably automated)
- Open Services - Both usage and consumption
- High-Quality Enterprise Federated Search (huge problem)
- Flexible Hosting Options

Governance is a key issue in that when you open yourself up to other departments and users, you bring up

Examples:
IBM and QEDwiki
ProgrammableWeb.com
MashupFeed.com

Government agency creates an internal wiki. They wanted to get workers to contrinute high value information, but they couldn't get contributions from workers because it wasn't in their self-interest.

The result of long-term Web 2.0: Social Computing

• moving from top-down to bottom-up model

• moving from ownership to experience

• Power is moving from institutions to communities

Major Trends for Enterprise 2.0

• Enterprise Mashups
• Ad-hoc yet integrated
• Consistent Foundations

Reccommendations
Small Pieces, Loosely Joined
Reuse first, build structure
Provide minimum structure and let users build from there

Blogging safely and smartly at work

Computerworld has a nice article giving tips for employee bloggers.

The suggestions are:

1. Tell the truth - This includes both honesty and transparency.
2. Find your voice and stick to it - Blogs are like any media, the most engaging ones are the most popular.
3. Be professional at all times - Everything you do on a blog represents you and your organization, regardless of whether that is your intention or not.
4. Craft a corporate blogging policy - Employees are already blogging, companies already have communications policies; drafting a corporate blogging policy helps employees tie the two together.
5. Know your tools and use them - Take advantage of ways to increase you blog traffic and tracking tools. You don't have to be a programming expert to use blogs.

(thanks Phil)

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Technorati Tags: employees, blogs, rules

Big Businesses Befuddled by Blogging

A new report is out from Makovsky & Company and Harris Interactive that looks at the state of blogging among Fortune 1000 companies.

And results are...drumroll please...most companies are still struggling with what to do about blogging.

Let's get to the results:

- Nearly half of senior executives polled do not have corporate policies pertaining to blogging, although 77% believe that their organizations should address such policies.

Analysis: While this number is higher than earlier reports, it still points to a larger problem, which is the lack of knowledge about what employees can and can't say (regardless of whether they are on the clock or doing "business"). Fact is, companies need to have guidelines in place regarding, e-mail, blogging, IM, message boards, etc. This is not necessarily to be restrictive, as most policies are common sense stuff, but rather to raise the issue among employees and actually encourage productive conversations.

- Even though 12% of senior executives say their companies have taken legal or other action in response to a blog, only 20% report having a formal process in place for monitoring blogs written about the company.

Analysis: This is just ridiculous! If you are a Fortune 1000 Company, most likely people are talking about you. You should monitor blogs as a way to gather information, just as they certainly all monitor MSM. For goodness sakes, just pay some high schooler $15 an hour to monitor for you, or better yet, pay them $100 to set up free monitoring services like Blogpulse and PubSub.

- A minority (15%) say that someone in their organization is currently writing      a blog related to the company or its activities.

Analysis: Is this referring to official company blogs only? If so, then it ignores the thousands of employees who mention work-related material on their blogs.

- Only 30% of senior executives report that they have a thorough understanding of the term “Internet blog.”

Analysis: Not much to say here. This number is LOW...however, I wouldn't read a ton into this based on the methedology of the study (see below)

- Further, 8% report organizing a team of dedicated people to write sanctioned blogs about the company and its activities.

Analysis: If this is a team tasked with developing a blogging concept that makes sense for the organization, great. If these are the only individuals allowed to blog, that is just stupid and wont work anyway.

- Three percent said their company changed its product, service, or policies      because of publicity generated by a blog written about it.

Analysis: This is the number I really expect to rise over the next few years as companies turn to social media as tools for a larger strategy of co-creation. This is where you can use blogs as an information resource and find your real ROI.

My Conclusions:
1. Knowledge and understanding of blogs is still extrememly low, even in large corporations. I imagine this is even more so in certain sectors (manufacturing for example) and would have liked to have seen the industry breakdown.

2. The fact that more businesses are not at least monitoring blogs is pathetic. This is free information. This information matters, and if you think it doesn't that is fine and dandy and will save you a few pennies...right up until the day it does matter and you discover you are screwed because you thought you were too good for a bunch of internet dorks to bring you down.

3. These surveys continue to blend the distinction between corporate bloggers and employee bloggers. While blogging policies will likely be similar for each, the goals surrounding and effectiveness of each will be very different.

4. This area is still wild, full of excitement (much of it overhyped) and rich with opportunity. The opportunity includes the chance for a company to develop a valuable point of differentiation or the potential for a compnay to alienate employees and consumers. Blogs are scary to big businesses, however in today's competitive climate, companies may feel compelled to rush into the fire and hope they do not get burned. Why? Because they know someone else will, and if you can get through the flames unscathed, they just may find nothing but clean air on the other side.

Methodology disclaimer: The survey examined 150 "leading executives" from Fortune 1000 companies (6 had never even heard of corporate blogging). Though it says that the responses are from a large range of sizes, locations, industries, etc., the breakdown is not provided. Perhaps more importantly, it makes no reference to what type of executives were polled, i.e., whether they were in communications, HR, finance, etc. Here is the punchline:

"Data from this sample are not weighted and are representative only of the body of individuals surveyed. In theory, with a probability sample of this size, one can say with 95 percent certainty that the results have a sampling error of plus or minus 8 percentage"
points."

8 points represents a pretty big swing and this calculation doesn't even consider whether certain variables should be weighted.

Summary: This survey provides more evidence for some familiar themes
1. Companies still are struggling to figure out what to do about blogging
2. Not enough companies have a blogging poilcy in place
3. Not enough companies monitor blogs

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Technorati Tags: blogs, corporate, Harris, Makovsky, survey