Do “winning” companies have incentive to blog?
From Doc Searls: Much better , his posts from the Syndicate conference. Doc raises a really good question:
By the way, during the first panel, I noted (from the audience) that there might be an uncredited reason why there’s relatively little blogging from employees at Google and Apple — while there’s an abundance from employees at Microsoft and Sun. A friend at Apple recently told me that he and others at the company tend not to blog because “When you’re winning…”
If it had been available, would we have seen blogging at Microsoft or Sun back in the days when those companies were “winning?” Interesting question.
I saw this right when I finished reading Mena’s (Six Apart founder) post responding to criticism about how she, and the rest of her blog tools company, are rarely blogging themselves anymore.
You could certainly argue that SA is a “winning company” right about now, on the success of LiveJournal, TypePad, and MovableType. Aside from being very busy, and who isn’t, really, perhaps SA people aren’t blogging wildy away simply because they don’t feel the competitive pressure to?
At Microsoft certainly the enthusiasm behind blogging has been fueled by wide internal recognition (and lots of hammering from customers, partners, and competitors) that we weren’t open enough. We were the faceless Borg, as the chant went. We still are to a degree, but heavy and open blogging by employees has started to change that. Sun is well on the same path, in response to similar criticisms. Now see IBM. For smaller companies, the competitive pressure is around gaining visibility in a crowded world – and blogging is a great way to address that.
So perhaps Doc is right – if companies don’t feel a serious competitive pressure to blog, would they? Maybe Google, Apple, and Six Apart just don’t see the need?
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I can’t speak to your main point (I certainly feel we’re a “winning” company!) but I’d argue we’re a poor example of “not blogging”: We post more on our company site than Google and Apple’s blogs combined, with an average of over two posts a day, for almost 4 years now. We also talk more honestly about what we’re doing (I don’t see Steve Jobs responding to complaints that the iPod is too expensive) so I’d argue that should be factored in, too.
More to the point, our company bloggers, both on our sites and on their personal sites, have as much voice and impact in the blogosphere as those of Sun’s and Microsoft’s, despite our entire company being smaller than just the marketing dep’t of any one of the products those companies put out. So, either on a per-employee basis, or on an impact-per-post basis, or just as an absolute comparison to output from the giant companies in our space, I think we’re world-class in our blogging.
Not to say we can’t or won’t do better. But I’m not unhappy to merely be among the best in the world, either.
Winners don’t need to blog?
Winners don’t need to blog?