Corporate blogging: Does it really work?

Computerworld - Editor's note: This article is part of a package that examines blogging in the workplace. For a look at how IT departments are dealing with the encroachment of blogs into the business world, see "IT wrestles with workplace blogging."

Mark Boxer wanted to talk to his employees about the top issues at work.

So the president and CEO of operations, technology and government services at WellPoint Inc. sent out weekly e-mails under the header "Thoughts for a Friday" and encouraged his workers to e-mail back.

But while Boxer sought open communication with his employees, there was a problem with his system: He was reaching thousands of workers at the Indianapolis-based health benefits company. The e-mail approach to keeping up the conversation was cumbersome.

Boxer figured there had to be a better way for communicating on such a large scale, so in June 2007 he tried blogging.

The results have been positive. "It's been a very effective way for building a community," Boxer says. "It's a unifying force."

Blogs are moving from the social realm to the corporate world. But companies aren't replicating the free-flowing exchange that has been a hallmark of the broader blogosphere. Rather, companies are trying to harness that freedom and conform it to business needs, with forward-thinking companies using strategic planning and formal policies to shape the use of blogs and other Web 2.0 tools to drive more communication and collaboration among workers.

"The real revolution of blogging isn't that you can take Dan Rather down in three months or expose a congressman, but that people have been given access to a content management system that they like," says DL Byron, principal of Textura Design Inc., a Seattle firm specializing in business blogging, and author of Publish & Prosper: Blogging for Your Business (New Riders/Peach Pit Press, 2006).

Bringing on the blogs

Companies are using internal blogs for several purposes, according to a June 2007 survey of IT decision-makers at U.S. companies with 500 or more employees that are piloting or have implemented blogs. According to the survey by Forrester Research Inc. in Cambridge, Mass., 63% are using blogs for internal communications, 50% for internal knowledge and communication, and 47% to position the company and its team as thought-leaders in their field. In addition, 46% use external-facing blogs (that is, blogs generally viewable on the Internet) for marketing to customers and prospects.

Companies are using blogs to promote collaboration, particularly across distributed organizations, to manage projects and to handle workflow processes, according to Anil Dash, vice president of evangelism at Six Apart Ltd., a blogging software and services company in San Francisco.