Kevin O’Keefe points to an excellent post by Liz Strauss, an expert in corporate online communications. Whether they say the words or not, many companies are afraid to let their employees blog. Liz wonders “is the blog the problem?”
“Look to the people. Isn’t the issue one of trust and control? The employer is concerned about what employees might write on the blog. We let employees talk to customers daily — answering email, answering phone call, answering questions at exhibits, and answering letters at the office. We trust what they write on behalf of our company. We once worried in the same way about the telephone and email.
It comes down to hiring and training employees who make good decisions. If we trust our ability to choose the right employees and to let them know the values that we hold for our company and our customers, the question of whether we should let them blog falls away as an issue. A blog is a powerful, customer-facing tool. Like a computer, it’s as strong as the people we choose to use it.”
Kevin was told recently of one senior lawyer who was told by the firm that they would not be permitted to blog. ‘The firm does not allow its lawyers to blog.’
The lawyer responded with a question. ‘Why am I working at a place that does not trust me to talk about what I do – about a niche in the law I am passionate about?’
I checked this a couple of years ago with the same results. The reading level of smays.com is elementary school, according to this website. The high end of the scale goes up college (maybe grad school?) and I think elementary school is the low end (do pre-schoolers read?).