Wednesday, August 02, 2006

Why CEOs Don't Blog?

Even though several companies encourage their employees to blog, none of the fortune 500 CEOs blog with a sole exception of Sun's Jonathan Schwartz. Why is that?
  1. Is it because they don't have time?
  2. Is it because they are used to 'ghost' writers?
  3. Is it because they need to be extra careful with what they say lest their posts reveal some confidential stuff about the company?
  4. Is it because they need to be extra vigilant about customer service / support related issues?
I am not sure what it is but none of the above really make sense. On one side there is lot of noise on corporate blogging but on the other side most of the top guys don't. Blogs are a great tool to communicate constantly and directly with their customers. It also gives them an avenue to solicit direct feedback.

My take is, as blogs grow and evolve over the next few years, CEOs can't afford not to blog. What's your take?

7 comments:

  1. Ram..Is that the case. I never realised that. I thought blogging will be a habit that everyone follows....

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  2. Ram,

    Do visit this link by dreamhost. Recently there was a power outage in the US and many companies had to shut down their web services that includes My Space. I am sure you will be impressed.

    http://blog.dreamhost.com/2006/08/01/anatomy-of-an-ongoing-disaster/

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  3. I can think of a couple of reasons...

    1. Blogging is still not a mainstream activity.

    2. CEOs don't want to have a completely transparent dialog with employees/clients/shareholders.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Once in my erstwhile company, one of my colleague suggested our CEO about blogging in a e-mail and the CEO implemented by creating a blog space and blog. It was a corporate blog and we had many employees participation too.

    I would welcome the CEO's to blog and get closer to their employees. It helps in their business too. I am sure this will be done in the near future.

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  5. my take is you should stop blogging and encourage others to stop blogging too. Too much of information and noise is bad for health. Well, who cares anyway. carry on with your rambling, but dont expect CEOs to do the same.
    stop acting childish like kiruba.

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  6. Balaji
    Blogging is still a rarity amongst the top guys.. but, I would like to see that become a 'mainstream'soon.. I enjoy reading Jonathan S blog and his ability to communicate directly.. (Several companies are worried about 'liability' issues of top guys 'revealing' too much)

    Also, will check out the link..

    Nithya
    Yes.. It is still not a mainstream activity and transparency is a big thing / challenge for many companies
    Blogging brings out a slice of a person and 'big guys' / CEOs are hesistant to dive in as they might inadvertantly say something that they otherwise wouldn't..
    It's not blogging but look at what happened to Mel Gibson last week..

    Raman
    Blogging is increasingly becoming a corporate tool.. but it is not like 'email' yet..
    Having said that, I am not sure if blogging as a platform is atuned to 'Ghost writers'.. I feel blogging is a personal tool and each posts reveal something about the individual..

    Balaji
    That's nice.. The CEO you are talking about.. did he/she do 'intranet' blogging for the employees or for the public..

    Anonymous
    I choose not to respond..

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  7. Ram,

    That is the official Dreamhost web log (blog) updated by people in Dreamhost and not by CEO.

    If I am not wrong Dreamhost is a web hosting service which was affected due to power cuts in the heat in US that resulted in several users losing access to their own website.

    This blog meant to transperantly discuss the issues that they had that resulted in the failure and I have to agree that it is very transparent

    ReplyDelete