Archive for December, 2003

From Phil’s site, via BoomNation: Robert Scoble says:

I keep asking executives “when you gonna start a weblog?” But, quite consistently get an answer of “way too busy.” I asked Sanjay and Dan’l that about a week ago. They both ran down what their schedules look like. Nearly every minute of every day is scheduled. Dan’l told me he often is traveling and already rarely gets to see his family.

It’s a tough problem. Since I don’t think executives will get the time to weblog (at least not until it’s so important that they are forced to by market conditions — and we’re several years away from that, if ever since they can get more leverage simply by calling up the Wall Street Journal or USA Today and asking for a chat) then internal bloggers will need to build better ties to execs and PR and marketing so that we can help solve the problem. I’m trying to do just that, and I’ve had some success, but my time is limited too. So, we need to figure out how to get some scale. One guy can’t do it all.

Phil’s response was basically to drop in some ways that executives can blog without it being “blogging”.

I think his point is basically a valid one: executives need to organize it so that blogging isn’t an “activity” they do, but something that occupies their day (see Pickle Jar).

Executives never schedule in taking a phone call. Sure, they have secretaries to prioritize that stream of input, but it isn’t like they’d say “I can’t have a phone, my day is too full”.

So in that respect Phil’s point is a good one.

On the opposite side of the fence, though, is the motivation to blog. Phil covers this with his comment on stock options. Obviously it isn’t that simple.

Cost / benefit. Simple as that. It costs executives in 3 ways:

1. Lost time on other activities 2. Lost mindshare on other activities 3. Lost knowledge to the public domain

Each of those will be of varying significance, depending on the executive, and I’m sure it’s not even an exhaustive list. At the same time, though, I can think of at least 3 benefits:

1. Increased trust in the organization (if you can build a better image of your company, your image will get better as well) 2. Increased visibility in identifying you with your company (staying power) 3. Increased communication and quality of ideas (open source ideas)

I can’t say that’s enough to “convince” an executive, especially after today’s meeting, but it’s my two cents amidst a busy day.

Good luck Robert.

ps: I’ve now added Scoble to my reading list. I’ve been waiting for an excuse, and this is that.