In A Brief History of Corporate Blogging at Microsoft Korby Parnell tells his story about how corporate blogging started at MS…
“In the beginning, back in 2002 and 2003, no formal code of blogging conduct existed for Microsoft bloggers. There were few, if any, other companies that allowed its employees to blog. To top it all off, Microsoft has traditionally been a very tight-lipped company in the area of public relations. To this day, all executives receive special PR training upon joining the corporate ranks. It was the wild west. I don’t think our legal department or public relations firm (WaggEd) had any idea what we were doing on blogs.gotdotnet.com or of how big and important a force we would soon become.”
To me, there is a sense of simplicity every time Microsofters talk about blogging. They’ve made — and still make — a major contribution to the rise of corporate blogging, no arguments there, but many of them make it sound so… underground. A bit childish, perhaps: “Heh. Let’s do this while the PR folks aren’t watching”.
Some of this are for obvious reasons in Naked Conversations too. Trevor Cook does a very good job of showing exactly that. He slaughters chapter 7 into bits and pieces. This partly summarizes Trevor’s view:
“…PR has always been about getting information out in a way that advances the cause of the company. I can’t imagine companies setting up blogs to get out information that damages their interests. Do you have examples of a company encouraging its employees to blog against the interests of the company, now that would be revolutionary.”
Fredrik Wacka is the author and founder of the popular CorporateBlogging.Info blog which is a guide to business and corporate blogging.
Visit Fredrik Wacka’s blog: CorporateBlogging.Info.
