Do corporations blog?  Of course not. 

It is the people of those companies who write the blogs.  There is a challenge however for the very large companies who have thousands of people employed.  How do you make sure these people represent the company within the core values of that organization.  More interesting and complex is that there is a blur between what people do in their day job and their personal life. 

Here I am for example, running a blog that is not under the "governance" of my company.  But what I say can reflect back to my company in some way.  So where is the line?

In my day job (I work for Analog Devices), I've been participating in a organization called the Blog Council.  Here I've met up with people who manage some of the best brands in the world.  These people are trying to do the right thing in getting organizations to understand what is happening in social media and to make sure employees use these tactics in a respectful, transparent way.  It is a big challenge in the consumer market but also for B2B.  In the High Tech B2B world, we've been blogging for years.  They've been called forums.  We've (typically the marketing department) have written guidelines and legal have deployed confidentiality agreements, but at this point each corporation has done their own thing and sharing of best practices with respect to using social media has be missing.

One great project I got to work on at the Blog Council was call the "Disclosure Best Practices Toolkit".  It went live today.  It is basically a series of documents with recommendations that companies can decide to follow to help communicate best practices in using social media.  I tip my hat to the Blog Council to take on such a project and to see it through to completion.  Many types of forums I've participated in were all talk and no action.  It is nice to see a result of hard work.


Now reflecting back on my disclaimer blog back in June of 2007, I realize there were some items I left out which I will be correcting.  One is listing my current employer (noted here) and the other that this blog is in no way a reflection of the policies of my company.  Although in my role as director of marketing for one of the divisions, I am starting the conversation.