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Making IT Work - Think Before You Blog

By Michael Schrage

February 15, 2006 — CIO —

A CIO with a global reputation in the financial services industry—and an ego to match—decided to launch his own internal blog to inspire his team. He thought it would improve communications and boost morale.

The man BlackBerry-blogged from the world’s finest airport lounges, hotels and CIO conferences. For weeks, no thought was left unexpressed. A few thoughts were quite pithy; most were self-indulgent piffle. His camera-phoned photos of mountain views also invited smirks. The CIO’s blog quickly became an in-house IT joke.

Irritated and/or amused employees forwarded their favorite snippets to colleagues and vendors. They weren’t flattering. Worse yet, the firm’s help desk and customer service personnel hated the cheap shots he fired at them in several "flogs"—part flame, part blog.

A few anonymous e-mails were quietly sent the CIO’s way suggesting improvement. A sensitive sort, he interpreted these criticisms as a healthy sign he was hitting a nerve. So instead of cooling off, he turned up the heat. Bemused irritation became unhappy sniping. Barely a month later, his most biting blogs ceased. The posting frequency plummeted from three-a-day to weekly.

What happened? A friend of the CIO, who knew the man was hurting himself enterprisewide, made sure both HR and corporate counsel got a good look at some of the choicer entries. Polite phone calls and e-mail exchanges ensued: "It’s really not a good idea for these things to be so openly posted. Could create legal problems for us. I’m sure you understand." Bye-bye, blogger.

As netizens well know, blogs and ego can be an intoxicating brew—accent on the "toxic." Of course, several companies—IBM and Sun Microsystems come to mind—do an excellent job of integrating blogs into their communications infrastructures. Blogs at those companies become healthy platforms for collaboration as well as powerful tools for self-expression.

But should you—the CIO—have a blog? Is it worth the time, effort and risk? Yes. Of course. Every C-level executive who has to manage expectations, strategic direction, morale, uncertainty, risk and people’s time should most certainly be doing a blog. Not doing a blog will become much like not doing e-mail; a willful failure to communicate that sends a message all its own.

In time, C-level blogging will be as prevalent as C-level speeches, telecons and PowerPoint presentations. These blogs may not be done well, but how well they’re done will say volumes about the executives’ style and substance—or lack thereof.

As ostensible leaders of digital innovation within their organizations, CIOs should be at the leading—not bleeding—edge of these emerging media. As C-level business leaders, they should be living examples—and yes, experiments—of using digital tools to become more effective executives. Lead by example. Blogs offer CIOs a relatively fast, easy and cheap way to do just that.

 

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