Blogging for Fun and Profit

Computerworld - If I were remaking The Graduate today, with Dustin Hoffman's character as an IT professional who was looking to advance his career, the one word of advice I would give him would be: weblogs.
Weblogs, those personal journals and information sites that are growing by leaps and bounds on the Internet, are a simple way for an IT department to create some positive momentum for itself quickly and cheaply. Weblogs, or blogs as they're usually called, allow for easy, direct and effective communication to a wide audience. Most important, the cost of starting an internal blog project is ridiculously low. Most blogging software can be acquired on a trial basis, so you can test to your heart's content, and purchase costs are moderate as well. Here's how to get started creating a corporate blog site.
First, think "modest" and "discreet." While I'd love to see the CEO of every company keep a public weblog (imagine reading what's going on in the mind of Steve Ballmer, Scott McNealy or Carly Fiorina), that's not likely to happen in the near future. In fact, I'd caution you about creating a blog site that can be viewed by the outside world (or even keeping a personal weblog that refers to your company's activities) without first going through a very thorough review process internally. There are already tales of a number of good people who have lost jobs because of corporate discussions on their weblogs.
Instead of going for the full corporate monty from the start, first launch an internal IT blog. Start slowly, as you would with any IT project. Create a beta blog that can be viewed only by IT managers, then open it to IT staffers before you roll it out to the entire company. Get a group of folks to volunteer to create your first series of weblogs and use the beta process to weed out the ones who don't post often enough. Nothing is worse than a stale blog.
Use your blog as a vehicle for communication. Explain what's going on inside IT operations, link to interesting articles and create forums for internal discussions. While everyone is comfortable using PCs and most software, they still appreciate getting timely advice and opinions from experts in the field. Why shouldn't they get it from you and your team?
During the beta process, post at least three times a week, keeping your comments pithy and focused on a single point. Don't make it available to the entire firm until you have at least