Sue Bushell writes for CIO, Australia on--Blogging for Fun and Profit. Sue interviews a number of consultants and follows up with Caslon Analytics on the results of a survey they performed of their top 500 corporate contacts regarding potential adoption of the Weblog form.
What follows is an excerpt from Sue Bushell's article:
..."Our sense is that uptake of enterprise blogging by major Australian organizations is not going to increase significantly in the near future," says Caslon director Bruce Arnold.
"'Enterprise blogging' is a fuzzy concept," Arnold says. "Definitions vary according to whether you are a true believer - as in, blogging will cure all corporate/social ills - or have encountered one of the blogging gurus," Arnold says.
He characterizes two types of enterprise blogs. One, potentially the most important, is blogging within organizations. In-house blogs may attempt to capture an organization's tacit and explicit knowledge by harnessing 'organization memory' (OM) or knowledge blogs (k-logs, klogs or wikis). They can also facilitate project management (p-logs), serve as a mechanism for collection, assessment and dissemination of competitor intelligence (CI), or otherwise enhance communication across the organization.
Then there is blogging directed at readers outside the organization: an attempt to build a bridge between the enterprise and customers/stakeholders by reporting on developments or engaging their interest in a specific brand or product.
"We differentiate enterprise blogging from other blogging on the basis that it takes place under corporate auspices," Arnold says. "It is thus different from personal blogging, even though many personal blogs are written on company time using company facilities and may centre on life in the office - what one enthusiast called 'online water-cooler conversations'. CIO management of non-official or quasi-official blogging is a challenge similar to management of Web surfing or private e-mail using the organization's network."
K-Collector Topics: Conversations Corporations email k-logs Knowledge Management Productivity research Strategy Weblogs Wiki Writing