Up-close and personal: Blog shows your authenticity
Yesterday I had serious discussion about blog, especially about corporate and executive blogs, with my colleagues in a PR agency, in Kemang area, South Jakarta. I was invited as a speaker in their internal meeting, and I really had a good time with them.
One of interesting questions raised that how important of blogging activity for corporate and CEO? “Most of CEOs are very busy persons, so should they write blog post, too?” asked a participant.
Yes, they should blog! Blog is one of communication means, and one of the main tasks of CEO is to communicate! The leader can use blog to communicate with his/her customers, stake-holders, employees, and even with his/her rivals!
Jonathan Schwartz, president and CEO of Sun Microsystem, has a good answer when he asked why did he – as the president of a multibillion-dollar company – feel the need to start a weblog:
At a fundamental level the job of any leader, whether they are in the public sector or the private sector, is to communicate. And the real challenge in communications, especially in leadership roles, is really twofold. The first problem is reach: can you reach a cross section of the demographic that you care about? And the second is authenticity: does your message sound authentic….
Beginning the blog was a way of reaching the broadest cross section of people. It allows me to communicate not simply with customers but also with my own employee. Because I am using my own voice I can create a compelling and interesting place, and entice people back to get updates and revisions.”
Quoted from David Kline and Dan Burstein’s blog! how the newest media revolution is changing politics, business, and culture (New York: CDS Books, 2005), p. 203.
Jonathan’s blog readers, of course, will feel closer with him when he answered the reader’s questions or responded to the reader’s comments. Because, “the authenticity is fundamentally what customers want,” he explained. “It’s the DNA of the company.”
Just like the corporate blogging, the primary rule of executive blogging is: to humanize it. Blogging starts from the authenticity and then delivers the humanity…
And I really wonder why other CEOs took so long to start blogging?
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1 lenje
Interesting. I haven’t really gone through all Jonathan Schwartz’s posts, but I wonder whether any of the contents will include anything related to the company’s policies (not products, or IT issues). Or whether Sun will allow its employees to blog about the company’s internal issues. Honestly, I’m quite skeptical about it. So where’s the essence of communication, as is his own words, with his own employee? Oh yeah, I from the few posts that I have checked, I haven’t actually found Jonathan’s response to the comments :).
April 29th, 2007 at 12:40 pm2 Hardjono
Pak Budi, salam kenal. One interesting question is *who* initiated the CEO to start blogging. Was it the Marketing guys or was it himself. Also, what is the quality level of the blog. Does it truly reflect his current thoughts, or is he just pampering to the investor and analyst community. These questions apply to all CEO/CTO/CIO blogs (not just Jon’s). Just my 2 cents. [TH].
April 30th, 2007 at 6:16 pm3 Budi Putra
@ lenje:
I just wrote about the opportunity behind the corporates or CEOs blog. And I think Jonathan’s blog is one of benchmarkings. Other CEOs should not follow Jonathan’s blog style, but can create other style/genre.
@ Hardjono:
According to Jonathan’s interview with a book’s author, he wrote his postings by himself.
April 30th, 2007 at 9:12 pm4 waraney
Hi Mas Budi,
It was great to have you in our office the other day. The discussion was really productive and insightful.
I agree with you on the importance of CEO’s blogging. Unfortunately not many of them in Indonesia realized this, not to mention the time constraint and whatnots.
May 14th, 2007 at 6:57 pm5 Wilbur Anderson
hi
January 10th, 2009 at 4:21 am60ma7svrf46lkqmc
good luck