Sunday, April 09, 2006

Outsourcing and Blogs

"Roche" posted a comment on the recent post featuring HP's David Gee's feedback as follows:

Hi there Fiona!

HP indeed has taken up blogging and ppl like DG would surely make a difference in the Corporate Blogosphere. Where I am coming from is another area where blogging perhaps can make a difference. HP, besides having presence through Hardware, Imaging and so on also has 2 big outsourcing hubs in say India. Can Blogs be a great way to communicate with internal publics and also with teh blogging community at large. Would love some feedback on this. Cheers!
3:11 AM


Here is my response to "Roche":

Hi Roche

Thank you for your comments. From my understanding, you are suggesting that blogging can make a difference in the area of outsourcing. What you are saying is true because blogs allow for on-going shared business communication on a "shared" platform -- the Internet. Corporations, even those that outsource, use blogs for knowledge management. However, a new area of outsourcing blogging is emerging. You may have seen this on the net already or experienced it in your work.

Here is an example from the BeConnected site:

Link: http://betuitive.blogs.com/beconnected/
blog_outsourcing/index.html

"I dare say that more and more companies are waking up to the fact that they need to be listening to what blogs are saying about their companies. At the same time corporations are at a loss for how to effectively use blogs for positive PR and crisis response. It's a delicate balancing act that requires experienced hands. A good reason to consider outsourcing your blog design, management and content creation."

What would you think if corporations outsourced their blogs and if corporate executives posed as the authentic voice but in actual fact were not the actual true bloggers on the site?

I look forward to hearing your views.

3 comments:

Rishe said...

Hey there Fiona!

Thansk for your feedback. The autheticity/ ownership of blog content is always going to be a big area of possibilities. Ghost written or otherwise, so long as the companies voice is heard, I think it's a job well done.

Now for my query, What I meant to know was, can blogging be used to create dynamic online communities to make the employees feel more connected and instilled with a sense of belonging. Can they serve as a media for internal communication, say, as against an official Intranet. Which is always suspect in the absense of content updates on periodic basis. And so far as I knwo blogging, it defines the skew of content from, created by specialists to created by the user. So user generated content can make a difference to communication within the Internal Publics or employees.

Would look forward to your feed.

Cheers

USC Center of Management Communication said...

Hi Riche

Blogs definitely create dynamic online communities -- the interactions on this blog between students and those in business internationally is a real example.

What I love about the IBM blogs, such as Bob Sutor's blog, is how even managers and employees are interacting -- in this sense the blog is a wonderful bonding, mentoring, and motivating tool.

In terms of official intranets and internal blogs, my view is that the internal blogs create a more open platform for discussion and reduce email overload. In using and email inbox, we have to choose (by subject line and who the email is from) whether or not to open the email. Sometimes people copy one another unnecessarily on emails too.

In contrast, an internal blog allows optional comment (or it can be part of workflow) and also provides time for the commenter to think about what they will say/write. Emails are often fired off in haste with detrimental backlash.

Internal blogs can be password protected and accessible by company employees only -- not for open comment by the public. Comments can also be moderated. So, on a whole internal blogs provide a number of flexible and useful options.

What do you think?

Rishe said...

Hi again Fiona!

Thansk indeed for your feedback. I completely agree with the possibilities of putting internal blogs to use for a varied number of things. Yes, e-mails are becoming cumebrsome and blogging would provide the relief with practical solutions.

Sure wish, your queries from the HP bloggers are soon answered. Would keep track of this blog.

Cheers!