Bring back blogging

Within corporate boundaries

As bloggers respond to one another within the corporate boundaries, they discover people with shared interests. They develop relationships that cross organizational boundaries, horizontally and vertically.

They provide a great way for one person to get some context for a colleague they’ve never encountered before. Would you rather have people Google you or take a look at your blog? (If the answer is “Google,” then you’re doing your blog wrong.)

Even bloggers writing purely internal blogs should be encouraged to go off-topic. This makes writing one less of a chore and more a delight. It also enriches the corporate knowledgebase and, more importantly, enriches the relationships among people working at the company.

Allowing and encouraging this type of old-school blogging also announces to the entire company that management understands that businesses are communities of people whose interests and concerns go past narrow, corporate goals.

So, let’s bring back blogging, within business boundaries and spilling out to the entire open web.