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.

Microsoft’s announcement to delay the launch of its long anticipated Windows Vista provides interesting lessons on how to manage brand communication in the “open source marketing era.” As soon as the news hit the street, everyone flocked to their favorite Microsoft backchannel blogger to get the inside scope. Robert Scoble has build a reputation as a trusted source inside of Microsoft. But this time, the Microsoft employee was caught off guard at a conference in Las Vegas. He read about the announcement in the news and his blog entry offers little insights into Microsoft’s decision.

Clearly, the rulebook of how to manage the brand message has been thrown out. Web 2.0 has wrestled control over the brand from the closed quarters of the marketing honchos to the community. Companies are grappling with how to manage the brand message at a time when employee bloggers have rendered the PR spinster less relevant. Clearly, employee blogers should not be used to break hard news, nor called upon to blindly promulgate the company line, which would hurt their credibility. But keeping them in the loop about big announcements can be helpful in integrating the brand message. What say you?

One of my favorite sources of consumer opinion is PlanetFeedback, a public clearing house for customer complaint letters. Occasionally, a customer sends a letter of complement to PlanetFeedback. I did a search for one of my favorite brands, Starbucks, and found that they had over 100 letters of complements! Over one hundred Starbucks customers have had a good enough experience that they took the time to log on to PlanetFeedback, open an account, and write about the positive brand experience for the world to read! And that’s not all. Anyone can write a comment to a letter, much like anyone can write a comment to this blog entry. Most of the comments to the complaint letters at PlanetFeedback are written by other customers who are blowing off steam about similar problems. Not in Starbucks’ case. Most of the customer complaint letters have comments by regular Starbucks employees who weigh in to defend their employer!

Take this letter about an inconsistency in Starbucks pricing: A customer argues that a Tall latte with a second shot of espresso is more expensive at the Starbucks in her airport than a Grande, which has two shots of espresso. Both comments to the letter starts with, “I work for Starbucks and…” One of them is by a part-time employee. They explain that this must be an isolated case at this particular airport location because the extra shot of espresso is not normally that expensive. How about that for devoted brand ambassadors? I don’t know if Starbucks has an organized program to mobilize its employees to defend the brand in online forums, or if it’s a spontaneous outpouring of support for a brand they love. All I know is that no other brand that I know of have as many complement letters on PlanetFeedback and no other brand is defended as tenaciously by its own employees.

Think about the brand you work for: Do you have customer evangelists writing about positive brand experiences at PlanetFeedback? Do you monitor complaints at these kinds of sites? Do you have an army of employee brand ambassadors ready to defend the brand or explain the situation when you get negative consumer generated stories?