Official blogging

As our readers know, It's All Good describes itself as "A blog from 3 OCLC Online Computer Library Center staff...purely...personal reflections..."

None of the three of us are in the least bit naive or ingenuous so we know that our "OCLCness" is part of everything we write. Not surprising also, because most of what we write is about things related to our jobs at OCLC.

At the moment, however, there is no official policy at OCLC regarding participation in blogs, either almost official ones like IAG or personal ones of people who happen to work for OCLC (there are two I know of). OCLC does have policies on participating in electronic discussions but as far as I know they are division-specific, not company-wide.

And I am also not aware of any policies about being interviewed, public speaking, letters to the editor, being photographed wearing official OCLC clothes in funny situations and so on. I do think if The New York Times called an OCLC staff member up and said, "tell me what you think about Google Scholar" any of us would be savvy enough to refer the caller to our PR people--who have facts as well as opinions handy.

I am guessing most of you readers do not have policies for blogs, even if you have started one for your institution. I am going to share with you some of the resources I am gathering for our own internal discussion about blogging--and if you have ones to share please send them on! And if you have nothing but ideas to share on the topic of institutional blogging, we're all ears and eyes.

- CorporateBlogging.info is maintained by Fredrik Wackå, from Malmö, Sweden. It's written in English. He says, "Blogging can play an important role in both external and internal communications of your organization. But to find out exactly how, you need an overview. You need a place where many different questions on participatory business communication can be answered. That's what this is. You will find basic facts, examples and testimonials, and an eye on the current discussion."

And right at the top of the CorporateBlogging page is a free 16 page document available for download called "Beginners' Guide to Corporate Blogging."

- The Gilbane Report v.12 no.10 is called Blogs and Wikis: Technologies for Enterprise Applications. The introduction says: "But, being dismissive of blogs and wikis because of how they are most often used, and talked about, today is a mistake (PCs and web browsers weren't considered as serious enterprise tools at first either)." A completely irrelevant but interesting piece of info: the author of the report is Lauren Wood who happens to be married to Tim Bray.

- "Corporate Blogging" is a short article by Frederik Wackå published in July 2004, on what I think is a Danish web site called Kommunikations forum. The article and links are in English, but all the other links are in the native language of the web site. "But most of all, blogging challenges the organisational hierarchy. The blogger becomes a very visible individual. The blog can give this person a position in the eyes of important target groups that don’t necessarily match the organisation scheme. And that requires an open corporate culture."

- Harvard Business Review has published this year's "HBR List: Breakthrough Ideas for 2005" and the business implications of blogging is number 10. This 29 page special report is available for purchase...I bought a PDF version for $6USD and it was available immediately. Steve Rubel, a PR guy with a blog, has a nice summary here if you'd rather not find the whole thing. And the blog bit is a small part of the total, so unless you care to read about all 20 ideas, I wouldn't suggest you purchase the report.

Finally, any comments you'd care to leave about the value to you (or not!) of this blog or any other blog affiliated with a business/institution would be much appreciated.