A hard time to be a command and control communicator
3rd April 2006 by Anders Gronstedt
It’s hard to be a command and control communicator these days. The new frontier of Web 2.0 and the open-source workplace is opening the floodgates of communications within the firm, empowering the real brand ambassadors of the organization to communicate on their terms. The internal blogs and Podcasts we’ve set up for clients have proven to be tremendously effective forums for free-flowing conversations. They’re engines for sharing experiences from the front lines across the field organization. Employees can read the musings, rants, raves, insights and opinions of their peers and weigh in on conversations about pressing issues that will help them better serve customers and deliver the brand promise.
You can already hear the excuses to resist this development echoing in the hallways of communication departments around the land: “What if corporate executive bloggers misconstrue the corporate message?” “What if employee podcasts don’t toe the company line?” “What if disgruntled employees blow off steam on an internal blog?” “Our IT system is not set up for that!” “Our lawyers are scared of blogs!” Their denunciations smack of the 1970s IT mainframe minions who didn’t want employees to use PCs. Yet, I hear them every time I give a speech on the topic.
If internal blogs and Podcasts make command and control communicators uneasy, external blogs are their worst nightmare. External blogs written by employees and executives is the new unedited public face of forward-looking brands. This new channel speaks to partners, customers, prospects and other stakeholders with authority, passion, and credibility. There are well in excess of 2,000 Microsoft employee bloggers, for instance. They are no doubt contributing to giving the company a human face and allowing it to engage with customers and development communities in a dialogue. Bill Gates has been the first to acknowledge that the many Microsoft bloggers are making it difficult to get a uniform brand message out. And herein lies the creative challenge for brand leaders, to harness the power of discordant voices of their employees and leaders to communicate consistent brand messages. This may be a scary prospect for old-school corporate communications, brand and marketing professionals who are used to being in control of the message (and who get itchy as their control slips). Rather than doing the communication themselves, they now face the prospect of facilitating employees and senior executives who are increasingly charged with the heavy lifting of brand communications with key stakeholders. Sure, there needs to be guidelines for employee bloggers, but they don’t have to be longer than a sentence, or less. Microsoft’s blogging policy is two words: “Be Smart.” Wikipedia’s policy for contributors to its online encyclopedia is even more blunt: “Don’t be a dick.” If you insist on something more detailed, Yahoo’s employee blogging policy is a good example.
Giving up control is a scary thought for communication professionals who are steeped in the command and control view of corporate communications.