A group of students at Roskilde University that I have been advisor for this semester have written a paper on corporate blogging in a strategic perspective. Their case-study is the Danish Defence and the students have been interviewing different groups in the organization about the use of corporate blogs. I'll leave it to the students paper and the students' weblog to elaborate more at this point.

Two students - Trine and Line - from CBS are conducting a survey on the use of corporate blogs. They are trying to get a better idea of how weblogs can be used by companies and what the motives of consumers are when they use blogs. I've promised to help them get some answers. Follow this link if you are a blog-reader/writer (and you are, since you're reading this....):

Corporate weblog survey
(it's in Danish)

Debate on blogging is going around these days – for what do we need blogs, how should or shouldn’t we use them, is blogging a democratization tool, or is the high number of (uncensored and sometimes unverified information published on) blogs just polluting www and our minds?

How does it make sense to use blogs as a tool for political, commercial or purely personal communication? What are the success parametres of organizational vs. privately driven blogs, and how personal or commercial – if at all – may a blog be?

A perspective on this debate is to be found in this Danish-language article by journalist Troels Johannesen: “Nok Blog Amok” (Freely  translated as "Enough Blog Craziness"), that I appreciated to read, followed by interesting comments on the subject. If you take a look around www.stagisblog.com, part of the debate on e.g. distribution of feeds vs. ‘original source of publication’ has also taken place here.

The blog is still a relatively new communication tool and way of relating in the public sphere, so different perceptions and opinions on blogging is a quite natural and interesting part of the process: The medium, genre and definition of its potentials and limitations is still being created, we are in the midst of it all!

Even though you don't work with blogs on a daily basis, a way for you to make your statement on this subject is to vote for the blog you would like to see winning Blogprisen 2007 (The Blog Prize 2007)!

For the fist time, Blogmagasinet is giving out Blogprisen 2007. Until 1st of December you can nominate your favorite blog for Blogprisen 2007 by sending a link with a brief argumentation to Blogmagasinet. Next after, the voting among five nominees will take place. I don’t know how small or big this is going to grow – but I do like the experimental initiative, and will be curious to click by and check out the argumentations and the winner…

For now - enjoy your weekend and the beautiful Autumn!

This week STAGIS helped Kræftens Bekæmpelse publish its new version of www.blogomkraeft.dk that we designed for them.

Meet Charlotte, Jacob and Malthe at www.blogomkraeft.dk, three strong persons blogging openly about their everyday life or what they have at mind, while living with and fighting cancer, to share their experiences, advices and realities.

They - and the bloggers that will follow them in team rotations now and then - have chosen to make a difference that I personally admire in the debate and raising awareness of the fight against cancer; something that matters to all of us, since its a disease that affects and threatens so many and different people all over the world.

Maybe you or someone in your life is also affected by cancer? Feel free to participate in the dialogues on www.blogomkraeft.dk. In short; its a blog for life!

Help sharing: Spread the word on www.blogomkraeft.dk
So in the new version of www.blogomkraeft.dk, the perspective has gone from CEO to patients’ postings. And later on also employees from Kræftens Bekæmpelse will be among the bloggers.

With Kræftens Bekæmpelse prioritizing to develop www.blogomkraeft.dk, it tells us something really good about the organization being aware of their social responsibility related to cancer and people affected by the disease - and their awareness of how they can communicate in new ways and create the necessary dialogue with new tools that we helped them bring in and take to use.

The contributions of www.blogomkraeft.dk from Kræftens Bekæmpelse is to create a concerning debate, that can make a difference for people in Denmark affected by cancer, directly or indirectly. Sharing is one valuable way of handling tough challenges, demanding realities and life-changing experiences. One reason being, that sharing brings in feedback that can turn into dialogue, change your perspective and move you!

So you are welcome to spread the word on www.blogomkraeft.dk, thereby contributing to a meaningful cause; raising awareness of the reality of and fight against cancer.

Recently I'ev helped colleagues do research on new numbers about the blogosphere. Figures that are not so easily found, since the blogosphere is constantly evolving. In March 2007 Technorati tracked 70 mio. blogs (not nescesarily active blogs). Estimates tell, that every second 1.4 blogs open worldwide. The blogosphere is more than a 100 times bigger than in 2003. And today the estimated post frequency is 17 per second. (Click on illustration to see 'Why Blogging Matters'!)

Numbers on corporate blogging are challenging to estimate; A reason is that many corporate blogs start-off as company intern blogs that, if they have the potential, might go public later on. Those are not easily tracked. But online lists and wikis on corporate blogs are being developed at different sites. Like the one by TheNewPR/Wiki. Or like this wiki by Social Square on professional blogs in Denmark. And blogspotting is a competitive field, where different experts demonstrates different tracking skills.

In October 2004 Technorati tracked around 5000 American corporate blogs. Today around 10% of the Fortune 500 are blogging (some find the Fortune 500 list to undercount, and find TheNewPR/Wiki to be more accurate, see this article from BusinessWeek). TheNewPR/Wiki counts that by March this year 274 CEOs are blogging. But numbers tell that eg. 2.000 employees at IBM are blogging, and even 2.500 at Microsoft. So, if including the company intern blogs, the numbers must be rather sky-high.   

Balancing corporate governance of organizational blogs
My friend, who works with New Media at another agency (none mentioned, none forgotten!) and I shared a too short but really interesting conversation this week on corporate blogging: My friend telling me, that their corporate blog was launched full of good intentions. But is now slowly dying because of its, in my friend's opinion, too corporate concept; there are many restrictions on the bloggers, and personal angles on posts are not too welcome. My friend sees radical corporate demands on blogs as contrasting the very essence of what a good, living blog is. And this has been a turn-off and has taken the live and blog-engagement out of their corporate blog.  At least that’s my friend’s qualified experience.

(Click to read joke)           When introducing something new like a corporate blog, its understandable that leaders might wish to stay in control of how it evolves – but, like Nikolaj S. points out when talking about organizational blogging, since those leaders have chosen to hire their employees and provide them with a phone line and email account, trust in the employees' communication skills on behalf of the cooperation has already taken place… So personality (not to be confused with 'very personal' og private) in a blog post can be a tool of engagement; for the blogger as well as the reader and the commentator. Turn-on and tune in! – in stead of turn-off and turn out...

But the balance between personal and corporate (like that of private and public) can still be a challenging one when launching and introducing a corporate blog, at least 'till the new bloggers and management find confidence in this medium and way of communicating. And in DK, we (and Danish cooperations) are still far behind of what is a rather mainstream thing in eg. United States: Blogging.

Success parametres in corporate blogging
I find a blog-theme to be one qualified parameter of success, also since the blog is strong in narrowcasting, as well as personality, a strong sense of 'NOW' (presence and topical) and the ability to turn on engagement from the world around you through your blog, that being a social media.

Blogs have a build in element that tricks voyerism, which, if managed with considered thought and paired with authenticity, can do all good for a corporate blog – as well as for the organizational culture and public face of the cooperation, strengthening its display with a touch of personality, that many stakeholders demand of companies today - eg. future employeees, but also clients and product fans.

A blogger that really enjoys blogging is another simple but important key to launch a successful blog! So, management should also be vary not to turn-off the blog-engagement by too heavy corporate governance on the organizational blog.

The interesting thing is, that blogging, now being more constituted, is developing as its own genre – where styles, lengths on posts and purposes and perspectives on blogging are being discussed worldwide, also in blogs on blogs, meta-blogs. And the development, exploring and challenging of this new genre in communication and writing is really interesting to participate in! I mean; there are many ways to write a great poem – like there is writing a blog. And just ‘cus you are excellent in writing novels or journalism, you will not necessarily do good in writing poetry – or blog posts…Or maybe the cool thing about 2.0 blogging is, that it is really for everyone to do?! – though some talk critically about the 2.0 'pollution' of and by www, like author Andrew Keen in his recent book "The Cult of the Amateur", just reviewed by K-forum in this article: 'Al magt til amatøren?' (Power to the amateur?).

What do you think? Do you have a favorite style within blogging? What do you find to be a key to success in corporate blogs? And how corporate do you think corporate blogging can be?

Yesterday I read an article in Politiken which stated that 50 % of your identity is available to the rest of us online. Abelone Glahn states in the article that if you don't exist online then you nearly don't exist at all. We have previously discussed the importance of corporate blogging. But the article in Politiken states the importance of having a personal blog or to participate in some sort of social media like kommunikationsforum or Linkedin. Some people are terrified by the thought that they can't control the personal information which are available about them online. But Abelone Glahn points out to use this strategically. Though blogs and other social media you have the perfect means to control and mould your virtual/online identity. She calls it: Your virtual handshake" - and she just wrote a book about the subject with the surprising title "Your virtual handshake" (Dit virtuelle håndtryk). If you have a profile on LinkedIn or Kommunikationsforum you have the perfect means to show future employers what a great networker you are. Then some might ask: Isn't there a chance that a profile online can affect me in a negative way in a future job-situation. Oh yes! If you point out in your application that you are a fab networker and your profile shows otherwise. It's important that the online you is authentic. But does all this mean that I shouldn't present my self as a person with extraordinary networking skills? The virtual me doesn't have that many contacts! This raises an interesting question: Is my online identity more "real" to a future employer than my offline identity?

I just read a short article about the weblog awards 2006, which introduced me to several cool blogs. Some more serious than others:

Check out the full list - I think the large number of categories shows the extent of areas where blogging can really make sence!

Today the new blog of the Danish Cancer Society, "Blog om kræft" (Blog about cancer), took off. The voice on the blog is Frede Olesen who's a practising medical doctor, professor at the University of Aarhus and the head of "Kræftens Bekæmpelse". Birgitte, Sandra and I have been trying to help Frede and the friendly, devoted folks in communications along the way.

Frede is that type of leader that we've been blogging about on stagisblog.com. He's trying to open up his organization and doing a serious effort to ephasize the importance of the organizations ability to listen. He wants to know if his organization is doing the right thing. Even though he thinks it is. But as he mentioned the other day - actually you can't be sure if you don't ask. And that's why he is asking as he does in his first post on the newborn blog:

"...we want to open our ears and listen to the experiences about the treatment of cancer, that can be told."

A lot of leaders would tell their colleagues and employees to "know more about your customers/users" - all in the name of "user-involvement" which has become a prominent buzzword in any possible managerial discussion. But how do you do that? Your staff can't just start listening more. As a leader you have to help them with the knowledge, tools or ressources that will enable them to get to know more about the users of your service or product. As I was once quoted in my masters-program "Employees cannot act on announcements, only on physical change". I still live by that. Not that you should care about what you communicate, but the only thing that will really make a change is the combination of communication and structural change.

By using the blog as a tool for dialogue, Frede Olesen is installing a good, tangible example for everyone in his organization and the rest of us. At the same time he is collecting stories and comments from the many members of the Cancer Society. Listening is not just about opening channels or sitting still waiting for good information to flow by. It's about taking action, delegating ressources and taking responsibility for it to happen.

Congratulations on all of it, Kræftens Bekæmpelse!

You can join the debate on www.blogomkraeft.dk where Frede Olesen is blogging until may 1 for a start. The subject is - naturally - the fight against cancer, good and bad experiences that others may learn from and the fundraising campaign at the end of this month.

A bunch of bloggers who created BlogForum has initiated a blog-survey to know more about who is blogging in Denmark. Right now there are about 4.200 people who've answered the questionnaire. There are questions about age, gender, blog-habits etc. Check it out and let us know more about you: Gå til spørgeskema.

Sometimes hardcore bloggers discuss which blogs are right and which are wrong. And wether blogs are supposed to be used only internally in an organization or if they should blur the borders between "inside" and "outside" of the organization (some would argue that there is no such thing but that is another story). We've often discussed blogs as a technology that has a managerial or organizational purpose but for once let me point you to a real marketing or advertising blog. It's norwegian and it's certainly full-hearted. Meet the sheep Blogg Ulf!