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The Danger Of Corporate Blogs?

Sorry for the slight delay. Server problems - I'm sure you can relate.

Saw this article in the Washington Post, about a "renegade" blogger. Now, one of the drawbacks of blogs, people say, is stories like this. No one really knows if this person is for real, or if it's just another one of the corporate "grassy knoll" types. Wannabe stand up comics in my opinion, but too cowardly to face a real audience.

For McLean-based BearingPoint Inc., which is trying to rebuild its business after an accounting scandal and with a Securities and Exchange Commission investigation still underway, the musings of a disgruntled blogger might be a small problem. But it's a reminder that in the information age, no viewpoint is private, no slight unavenged and no joke too tasteless.

Like anonymous blogs supposedly written by employees of Microsoft Corp. and Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the BearingPoint blog is, in many ways, just like happy-hour conversations that employees are apt to hold after work. They gripe about inane training programs, grouse about absurd corporate policies and ruminate about management incompetence.

But transferred to cyberspace, where the audience is global, the management headaches associated with such grumblings become instantly more severe.

That might be true, but my thinking is this: You want to be the one driving the conversation, not being driven around by every crank with broadband and too much time on his hands. My feeling is that it's more dangerous to not have a corporate blog.

Love to talk with you about it. ghostblogging@veritymedia.com.

posted by John Palmer @ 7:20 AM