Buzz Marketing with Blogs: Why the FT Should Be More Careful Writing About Blogs

Why the FT Should Be More Careful Writing About Blogs

Lucy Kellaway writes in the Financial Times a perplexing article, Why executives should steer clear of the blogosphere. I’m a little confused by some of her points.

She starts with a long introduction about how rumors spread through a company, then says that blogs by executives can spread information as widely and quickly.

She says traditional communication fails because executives are boring. Actually, I’ve often found executives to be extremely interesting. Even if they’re a little less than scintilating, they certainly have a lot of interesting news to talk about. However, the ones I’ve known usually feel that knowledge is power. What’s changed, I think, with blogs, is that shared knowledge can help build personal power still.

Anyway, I digress. Kellaway then dismisses Randy’s Journal by Randy Baseler, vice-president at Boeing (no link given in the article? Why not, FT!) because it’s gushy and bland. OK, fair points. But she says that’s because Randy’s trying to sound hip. Could it not be that Randy’s a little gushy? I think the blog is ripe for criticism, but not for the reason she comes up with. The Boeing blog is obviously corporate communications, not genuine enough, missing comments and permalinks and links—that’s what it’s lacking, who cares what adjectives he chooses to use.

Next, she goes after Rich Marcello, the blogging senior vice-president of Hewlett-Packard. She says:

The following week he had something to write about. His boss had been sacked. “So what was the reaction to Carly’s departure internally?” he asks in his blog. Answer: “It varied.” He says that he was a Carly fan but that she didn’t execute her vision quickly enough, which doesn’t get us much further. Rather than tell us anything interesting he quotes a line from ee cummings about how difficult it is to be oneself.

It certainly is difficult to be oneself, if one’s blog writing ends up getting mocked in the FT.

But her true problem with corporate blogs becomes clear in her final example, Bob Lutz, vice-chairman of General Motors.

To me his blogs are excruciatingly boring because they are all about models of cars. What isn’t boring, though, is the way he does it. He defends his new Saab as if he means it, but then invites comments. On the same day 20 longish replies were posted - many of them critical. All there on the GM website for anyone to read. The point about blogs is risk. If they are made risky in any way - either through publishing negative comments, or because the author is honest about themselves or their business, people will take notice.

She’s half right here. Blogs aren’t about risk. They’re about honest, open communication, and if you’re bored by someone’s blog, leave. I know a number of car enthusiasts who think Lutz’s blog is the bee’s knees.

Posted by Travis Smith on 03/02 at 06:42 PM • Blogging News -- Blogs and Business

Comments

Just read this FT article.

My main complaint is that the phrase “executives should steer clear of the blogosphere” is now going to do the rounds of every search engine, trackback search and news agreggator on the web:-(

The article itself just makes two good points:

* old-world marketing communications are crap
* bloggers that write with commitment and without fear tend to do well

Neither one of these points has anything to do with “steering clear” of blogs.

Best,
Dug

Posted by Dug Falby on 03/03 at 02:45 AM