“A professional community of top global brands dedicated to promoting best practices in corporate blogging” have formed The Blog Council, a “forum for executives to meet one another in a private, vendor-free environment and share tactics, offer advice based on past experience, and develop standards-based best practices as a model for other corporate blogs.”
Initial members include AccuQuote, Cisco Systems, The Coca-Cola Company, Dell, Gemstar-TV Guide, General Motors, Kaiser Permanente, Microsoft, Nokia, SAP, and Wells Fargo.
The crux of the idea is that big businesses can get together and talk blogging, from the challenges corporate blogging presents from a governance perspective, through to management and policy development .
The reaction to the formation of the Blog Council has been mixed; some such as Lionel Menchaca, Digital Media Manager at Dell and Rick Calvert at BlogWorldExpo think its a great idea, where as others including Dave Taylor thinking its a poor idea, with Taylor writing
My translation: “we’re all clueless, but don’t want anyone to realize just how unplugged our organizations have become from the world of “marketing 2.0″, so we created a club so our ignorance can be shielded from public eyes.”
I’m not so sure. My natural reaction against the Council is based on its name; “The Blog Council” sounds like it owns blogging or has some sort of superior position over the medium, where as it is nothing of the sort. Something such as the Corporate Blogging Association or similar would have suited the purpose far more better than what they’ve picked. In terms of big companies getting together under a formal structure to discuss blogging they’re entitled to do so but you’d have to ask why? Are they, as Dave Taylor suggests, soo clueless that they need to set up a separate body to understand new media marketing?
The Blog Council’s website is here; ultimately you can be the judge.
Rule when you are a member of Blog Council : You can’t make grammar mistakes.
“Corporate blogging” reads like “corporate underground,” a situation that is untenable for the simple reason that the terms are defined in opposition to each other. Kaiser Permanente? I mean hey, go ahead and have your council, but this sounds like some Marketing person’s “busywork” pipe dream. Next step, the Corporate AJAX Commission.
My first take is that they are tired of mixing with the riff-raff at the general blogging conferences. The problems they list as unique to big companies are not unique at all. In fact, I’d say they are even bigger issues for small companies, as a boneheaded blog post by a small company can kill the company. Coca-Cola will likely survive any mistake their corporate blogger makes.
My second and even more cynical take is that they needed a conference in a warm weather location in February and nothing else was planned so they created their own.
Blog Council? Sounds silly.
I think Dave Taylor is close to the mark and COD nails the “we want to travel” angle and then there is of course the CYA facet - nobody gets fired if gets your butt in a sling if it’s a council recommendation. It’s a cube dwellers dream come true.
Sounds like an attempt to further corporatize the blogosphere and make it serve big business’ ends. Only in America do ideas like this happen, people. Only in America.
The name is an obvious take-off on “The Ad Council”, a much bigger but similar association which works on best practices for old media ads.
Wait, this is a behind-close-doors approach to what is basically a social platform? Let the silly men in suits play in their club-house while the real bloggers get on with blogging.
The whole point of a corporate blog is to inject the human touch into a business, and I’ve seen it done with great success only when the authors are open about it.
Not only is this idea counter-intuitive, it’s also just plain sad. Any company who joins this joke is broadcasting their ignorance to the world.
pfft.. “The Blog Council”.. who the f*** do these guys think they are?
Seems like a good idea, but I agree, bad choice for the name.
WOMA is not a good enough trade org for them?
Why would corporations get together to discuss, with their competitors (or companies/”executives” they consider to be their current competitors), what could be a competitive advantage?
Obviously they don’t think there is any share-holder-value-increasing business reason to do this, otherwise, they wouldn’t do it. Or maybe it’s a way to see what other people are doing — but if I had some new marketing 2.0 way to reach customers, I’d rather stay at work and reach them than give everyone else a leg up on my ideas.
They could have chosen a name that is more specific to them because think of it this is not a ‘council’ for all bloggers.
I’ll think on the name, I know it’s been some discussion amongst us that chose to join as well. As to travel - well, I can assure you as a corporate road warrior who has had glamorous business trips to Fargo in January - I have no interest in another business trip!! Here’s why I joined - I’ve learned the most about this topic by both doing it myself and listening to others who are doing it. Sometimes you screw up (learn the most from that), sometimes you get it right. A chance to join a group that I rarely see at other conferences so we can talk a few times a year in a structured way about both the good things and the bad things seemed like a no brainer.
Sean
Microsoft.
An inspired bad idea!
http://fakesteveballmer.blogspot.com
Glad to see that little timmy (age 6) can still design ‘great’ logos …. :p
It seems the community for large companies’ blogs only?
Interesting concept!I’m very sure a number of people would wana discuss what we learn, write and struggle with. I’ve always learned from some blend of doing it myself and snooping to others - to me, this is another way to work.
Parul
http://www.bhopu.com
I’m sure there is a bit of concern with hiding ignorance and there’s about a billion blogs and books talking about this, but it’s always nice to have a group of people you know and respect that are going through the same problems… Kind of like AA
Most executives, I’m guessing, have that “It’s my idea so I’m gonna hide it and not help anybody until it has served my greedy needs.” Much like Axel above. But it’s helping the people who care about getting better get better, even if it means helping others too. There’s still about a billion and a half companies that aren’t getting better as fast. I’d say that’s a damn good competitive advantage having a resource like that. Looking at just the obvious competition is a disaster waiting to happen.
The name still seems weird, though. Here’s a group of people that need help figuring this out and then presenting the group like they’re the thought leaders… Very strange…
…so many light sources. so shiny.
Hey I have an idea, lets all show up at the unconference in Orlando!
In the name “Blog Council” there is the word “Blog”. So I went to the Blog and searched for a RSS feed, no way to find it. I wanted to comment on the matter, no way to comment.
Conclusion, the Blog Council is not a blog! A paradoxal situation, isn’t it?
JML
I guess it wouldn’t feel right if we weren’t getting kicked around a bit, but in all seriousness Dell joined the Blog Council for one simple reason: We’re already listening, engaging and learning across the blogosphere. But we see this new organization as an additional forum — sort of a community of peers — to learn from others and to get better at social media. And for those who believe companies large and small have the same challenges, try wrangling with the proposition of over time engaging 88,000 employees around the world.
Sure, this new council isn’t perfect, but it’s barely a day old. Time will tell what kind of mark it’ll make. Were going to give it a chance to succeed.
@Jean-Marie: Actually, no. “Blog” is an adjective, modifying Council. So it’s a council about blogs. If it were “Council Blog,” sure. But it’s not.
So much heat, so little light. As you speculate as to how clueless “they” are, have you considered *who* they are (by name)? Do the fiery speculations sound right when you substitute real names for “they”?
How many of the critics have experience in large corporations? What would “just do it” look like in, say, a global corporation with the world’s most widely recognized brand? What would it look like *inside* the company (and no hand-waving).
Things really are different when you deal with (many) millions of customers, tens of thousands of employees and revenue in the billions. It seems to me that this is a group of bright people (the ones I’ve met, certainly) who are trying to do good things in a challenging environment. All this pile-on based on a press release and small web site simply confirms that the big companies face a different set of challenges.
Oops. Label got stripped out. Previous comment addressed to Jean-Marie in only the first paragraph. The rest is a general comment on the whole situation.
Another stunning bit of commentary from TechCrunch…
Step 1: Jump onto the meme.
Step 2: Skip the research and instead focus on some minor, unimportant aspect of the meme topic (in this case the name).
Step 3: Publish.
As Nathan correctly points out, bloggging in one context isn’t the same as blogging in another context. Modifiers do have an impact, and I see absolutely NOTHING wrong with a group of practioners coming together to discuss best practices in a comfortable environment.
On the subject of corporate blogs, I read yesterday that Wal-Mart is trying to make headway with a recently-relaunched blog. Their efforts prompted me to write the following piece on my blog.
* * *
This morning, I stumbled upon Wal-Mart’s new blog, Check Out, which went live seven days ago. After a quick look around, I decided, for several good reasons, that I’m ready to drop everything and go to work as a Wal-Mart blogger.
The first thing that sold me on the idea was the message contained in the Dec. 5 Welcome to Checkout post announcing the blog’s “live” status. The fact that an icon of the blogosphere was quoted in that post didn’t hurt either. That post’s author(s), the Check Out Team, described the blog this way:
~~ This is a blog, simply, about a team of experts at Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club who have really cool jobs working with gadgets, games, sustainability and more. Even better, these jobs are centered around helping people save money and live better.
~~ We’re excited.
~~ Finally, in terms of blogging, we like the advice Robert Scoble gave back in 2003 when he wrote his version of a “Corporate Weblog Manifesto.”
As a wordsmith and recovering public relations practitioner, I appreciate the simplicity and to-the-pointedness of their message. Even greater, however, is my appreciation of the second thing that sold me on the idea — a simple mathematical equation:
~~ Since going live SEVEN DAYS ago, the blog has published only EIGHT NEW POSTS. Furthermore, the blog lists and displays the photos of NINE WRITERS who make up the Check Out Team. Do the math! Every writer except one — who I assume is the boss and does nothing but assign and edit posts — is responsible for writing only ONE POST PER WEEK.
Since I began blogging in October 2006, I’ve published more than 1,100 posts — or an average of 2.6 posts per day! Granted, not all of them were feature-length posts, but many of them — at least one per day — came close.
With literally millions of ideas — in the form of people, products, etc. — waiting inside every Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club store, I think I could handle the “stress” of having to write ONE POST PER WEEK.
Where do I apply?