The Rise of the Blog at MS
On a recent trip to Mexico (for pleasure, not business), I picked up the magazine in the seatback pocket of the American Airlines Super-80 and prepared myself for the usual blather on tedious topics and mediocre journalism one tends to find in these publications. To my surprise and delight, I came across an article ("Blog New World") on the blogging phenomenon in the corporate world -- what it may mean, and more importantly, what it may portend with respect to the future of corporate-customer communications. I've been unable to find a reference to an electronic version of the article, but wanted to nonetheless give my perspective on a few of the topics covered.
In particular, the article states that in the case of many corporate blogs, which tend to manifest themselves either as internal communiqués or external dialogues, there is no grand vision at the organizational level of many corporations that outlines the protocol and standard operating procedure of a team or individual blog. In fact, I myself have instituted both this external blog as well as an internal one that allows me to more effectively communicate with my colleagues en masse by simply sending my postings to their inboxes. I can more accurately track the reach of my communication, and the use of an RSS feed tends to elevate my postings above the din of the myriad emails through which each of us as Microsoft must sift on a daily basis. Hey, whatever works to get the message across :)
The author of "Blog New World" goes on to underscore the fact that blogs are a refreshing communications channel in a world where there is "so much staged communication." Instead, blogging rejects that notion in favor of a real-time, frank dialogue. It allows we individual bloggers a personal voice with direct access to our communities, replacing to a certain degree our usually higher-level corporate communications with a low-level channel that implies a certain accountability for our words. Further, this accountability combined with laissez faire regulation can serve to change the public perception of Microsoft. These are important points and should not be overlooked in lieu of a desire to measure the ROI of blogging. IMHO, it is neither consistently possible nor a worthwhile pursuit to do so, and misses the point of blogging entirely. Blogging is essentially a way to tailor communications at the individual level. We've over 1000 individual or team blogs (according to the article) that allow our customers to have direct access to members of our product and marketing groups -- something unheard of in corporate communications even five years ago. We can address customer issues in real-time and solicit feedback (or have it thrust upon us, as the case may be) that can potentially inspire an immediate and direct response. For us, being able to learn first-hand from our customers what's on their minds and then respond in kind is an invaluable capability. In fact, it's my belief that if we at MS correctly address this opportunity in a scalable fashion, access to our customer community may end up being one of our strongest assets, intangible as it may be. In addition, it could create a competitive advantage that cannot be easily replicated in another forum, nor could a competitor easily replicate the same results.
It's also necessary to recognize that blogging is just as empowering for the MS employee as it is for our customers. My position on blogging is that the less it is regulated at the corporate level, the better. Doing otherwise would risk diluting the impact of blogging as a resource, from the standpoint of both the employee and the customer. In MS' brief history of employee blogging, we've made the choice (implicit though it may be) to "embrace the chaos," as the article puts it, and allow blogging to grow and thrive and at the same time retain its credibility as truly representing the voice of the individual rather than the corporation. The long and short of Internet communication today is that power has decidedly transferred away from the corporation and toward the customer; I do not see this trend reversing itself in the foreseeable future. The crux of the matter -- as stated by the article -- is that corporations need to learn to be better listeners. Therefore, we at MS can to continue to play along as we have to date or to fight the trend and revert to a more traditional stance on corporate communications. My hope is that we'll continue to recognize the power of this communications medium and the real benefits it yields on both sides of the equation.
