On February 21, I wrote on Desirable Roasted Coffee, my blog, about the advice Dee Rambeau has given you. In posts here and on his own blog he told you:
Public Corporations: blogs are useless and irresponsible. No Corporate Communications person in their right mind would allow a C-level executive to blog. The Jonathan Schwartz’s of the World aside, it is not a sensible PR move to allow a top executive to share his thoughts in Cyberspace.
I called this “simply the most ridiculous advice I’ve ever heard.” Since then, a couple of you have asked me to explain my views in more detail.
Dee’s advice is ridiculous because it is based on several flawed assumptions:
1. that communicators control corporate communication
2. that C-level executives shouldn’t communicate on their own hook
3. that the communication needs of public and private companies are remarkably different
Let’s take each myth in turn, and then add them up.
Communicators control corporate communication. Wrong. Dee seems to think corporate communicators are in a position to “allow” or “not allow” senior executives to blog. They never are. Never have been. Never will be.
The good corporate communicator is, at best, a trusted adviser to the CEO. And that is a wonderful place to be, but the communicator who thinks she is going to “allow” or “not allow” the CEO to blog or speak at a convention, etc, is demented.
C-level executives shouldn’t be allowed to communicate on their own hook. Wrong. Many C-level managers are great spokespersons for their companies: they know the products and markets, and are enthusiastic. We all know that; that’s why we try to get managers interviewed in Fortune or onto a speaker’s list at a convention.
So why Dee thinks these same managers shoudn’t blog is beyond me. As Mark Cuban points out, why spend an hour a week in interviews that the journalist screws up, when you could just spend an hour a week blogging?
Maybe Dee thinks Fortune interviews and convention speeches are done by the PR department.
Communication needs of public and private companies are vastly different. Wrong.
Dee says executives of public (traded on the stockmarket) companies especially should stay away from blogs. That’s surely because he knows a blogger could affect investor sentiment.
Well, yes, a blogging executive could. Just as he or she could affect investor sentiment in a dozen other ways. Why blogging is singled out is beyond me.
But Dee misses a far bigger trend: investors increasingly matter less. Money is cheap; for most companies, it is instantly available. Especially for newer, growing public companies, stock market price is largely irrelevant.
The scarcest input today is, in fact, people: employees and customers. Employess gravitate to companies they feel an affinity for. Customers gravitate to companies they feel an affinity for. Who’s behind those companies? Invariably, it’s one or several senior managers who are good public communicators. Who can make employees, potential employees, prospects and customers feel welcome at the company.
Summing up:
When Dee says you wouldn’t be in your right mind to “let” your boss blog, he forgets you have no choice in the matter.
If he means “don’t advise your boss to blog,” he’s broad brushing. Many C-level managers are excellent communicators.
Finally, if he means “public company” managers shouldn’t blog… he’s living in the 80s. You can safely ignore him — the companies that count today are those who reach out to employees and customers, not the stock market.
