PWC - Why Mohammed Amin Blogs

On February 19, 2006, I emailed Mr. Mohammed Amin - International Taxation Specialist at PriceWaterhouseCoopers - with some questions about his corporate blog. And he kindly took the time to answer these questions for me via email on February 21, 2006 - here they are:

QUESTION:

What prompted you to start your corporate blog?

ANSWER:

"I started this blog after a suggestion from my colleagues who are responsible for coordinating the tax element of our web presence for the UK firm. As you will be aware, our website, www. pwc.com is enormous, with sections for countries and lines of service. Due to the nature of the site, multiple levels of approval are needed before changes can be made."

QUESTION:

What are some of the benefits/drawbacks that you experience from having the blog?

ANSWER:

"The blog offered the scope to have something much more spontaneous and more personal. I appreciate that developments in a specialist tax field may not sound very personal, but everything is a matter of degree. The key message is that what goes on the site is determined and written entirely by me. However, as it is also PwC speaking, I still have the material vetted before posting by a colleague for technical accuracy, and by people from our corporate communications department to ensure that they are happy with me saying it. Despite this vetting, it still has a much more personal style than our main website."

"My goal was to extend my reach in disseminating our expertise on this subject. I think it has been achieved, in that many of the visitors to the blog do come from the type of companies that we want to reach. It is also worthwhile having my existing business contacts look at the blog, as it allows us to showcase our expertise. For that reason, I have the reference to the blog in the signature space of my emails.The main challenge I have faced is coming up with things to write about. I set out with the aim of one posting per week, but am probably averaging nearer one per fortnight."

Mohammed Amin MA FCA AMCT CTA (Fellow)
Read my Finance & Treasury blog at
http://pwc.blogs.com/mohammed_amin