CEO Blogs - Groundrules are emerging

I am regularly asked about CEO Blogs. Should we have one? Who should write it? What are the dangers?

My views on this area are:

• CEO Blogs are a good thing, raising visibility and engaging staff, customers...
• CEO's should use the same blogging software as the rest of their organisation
• the blogger should post at least once a week every week for a year
• the blogger should write their own posts
• a degree of goverance is required
• manage the risk - what will you do about comments added that you don't like

Cautionary Tale

One Tuesday in January the Financial Times' lead article said a senior leader at one major organisation had criticised the company's leadership style. He had done this via his corporate blog which someone must have leaked to the FT. By Friday, the FT ran a second article saying that the CEO had brought forward the date of his departure. Blogs are powerful and can be used in many ways!

One view from a major organisation is.....
If/when a CEO decides to have a Blog he/she also makes a number of promises to the organisation:

1. I will post new and interesting content on a regular basis.
2. I will write posts as a CEO but also as a colleague/employee.
3. I will allow and respond to comments which I don't necessarily like or agree with (whenever it is written in a good tone and I'm not in violation of law and regulations when responding)

And another major company says......
For somone as busy as a CEO, it is quite a decision to start a blog, as it requires the readiness to keep the blog updated and to respond to (at least some of) the reader's comments.

CEO blogs may give rise to huge amounts of comments, which may sometimes require a dedicated new blog entry only to respond to the comments and views among the workforce.
I think in general a CEO's blog initiative is well received and much read. People will expect a CEO blogger to address most of the key topics that are actual for the organization.

And finally another view from a major organisation.....
I agree also that comments require identification of the sender, to ensure some level of constructiveness in the feedback. Beside the act of blogging, also the commenting of blog entries requires careful consideration.

As comments are opened up to the whole reader community, they become part of the whole "blog experience". Comments often prove to show more about the originator than purely the intended view or opinion written in text. Anyway, in this respect blogs offer the workforce a new way to express their views and concerns, and in some occasions even "let off some steam".

Comments

[Aniisu]

This is an interesting post...but going by Edelman's Turst Barometer which says 'we tend to trust content or information from non-authority figures' - do you think there is any merit in considering CEO blogs?

[Paul Miller]

I believe there is merit in CEO level blogs because if they are done in a genuine way then they are well received. BT and Reuters both have senior level blogs written by the people in question and they have a high reputation among staff. It is the content quality that counts really.

[Keran]

I like that.

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Keran

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