I keep asking executives “when you gonna start a weblog?” But, quite consistently get an answer of “way too busy.” I asked Sanjay and Dan’l that about a week ago. They both ran down what their schedules look like. Nearly every minute of every day is scheduled. Dan’l told me he often is traveling and already rarely gets to see his family.
It’s a tough problem. Since I don’t think executives will get the time to weblog (at least not until it’s so important that they are forced to by market conditions — and we’re several years away from that, if ever since they can get more leverage simply by calling up the Wall Street Journal or USA Today and asking for a chat) then internal bloggers will need to build better ties to execs and PR and marketing so that we can help solve the problem. I’m trying to do just that, and I’ve had some success, but my time is limited too. So, we need to figure out how to get some scale. One guy can’t do it all.
The blogdev community has an opportunity to treat this as a challenge, an opportunity. What behavior, what facilities, will let someone as harried as a Microsoft executive or a single mom working two jobs squeeze blog writing, reading, and discovery into their lives?
Is it audblogging on the run? A quick speed dial on your cell for a note. Maybe audio or sms blogfodder? Great if it can be transcribed into searchable text. Blog as stream of experience.
Or do you make 200 phone calls a week? Maybe your phone bill as RSS becomes blog fodder. Basic analysis can show who has your attention (frequency, average length, total time). Further analysis could detect patterns among your network (Bob on Tuesday mornings; talks with Mary seem to follow Tim most of the time). Blog as phone pad.
Do you live in Outlook? Maybe you can default that all your outbound mail is cc’d as a draft to your weblog. That might cut blogging time to picking and choosing from the queue. Blogging as backup brain.
Maybe you live in your calendar, all meetings, all the time. Turn your calendar into blogfodder, provoking the posts before, during, and after meetings. Reverse chronology should come naturally here. Blogging as technography.
Before performance, executive culture is about trust. Execs limit conversation to trusted cliques, chains of command, and other social circles. LiveJournal-style control of who gets to read specific posts may overcome inhibitions about using the blog interface to capture your thoughts. Socially informed blogspace.
You also mentioned the role of PR. Here’s a new role: beat journalist. Be the Dan Gillmor of the Microsoft marketing veeps, a development programme, of M&A. Get on their calendars for 10-15 minutes a week, ask routine and provocative questions, transcribe and post to internal blogs. Canvas internal blognets for related posts and tie the threads together. Blogs as reportage.
Are we getting closer?
[a klog apart]