Heath Row transcribes a great session at the JupiterMedia conference, in which people talk about how they’re actually using weblogs in business, and the affect of weblogs on organizational culture.
Choice quotes:
Paul Perry, IT Director at Verizon Communications:
I knew that a lot of emails were going around about what was going on in the industry. Sometimes I was in those threads. Sometimes I was not. The problem with cc lists is that you have to decide if the email is spam or if you’ve hit the right audience. I needed to find a way in which I would be fully informed but I didn’t have to decide who to inform. Another problem with email is that it’s gone. I didn’t want to have to go into everyone’s email to see what had been read or not. I also needed the right technical people to highlight what I thought was important and what they thought I needed to see….
Even very technical people who were aware of blogs didn’t want to post at all until they saw other people post. I created a private space for them to post in their own private journal. As soon as they were ready to open it up to the project, they could. It was important to post and make mistakes. You need to offer a ramp that is shielded and private. I don’t see any additional candor. The organization size is very large. Verizon IT is 10,000 people. It’s not like we can all share and have enough interaction person to person. With an organization that large, you are open to some misunderstandings if you don’t offer more context first.
Rock Regan, CIO, State of Connecticut
We’ve got probably 90 people using a blog to discuss the architecture of our organization. I have a liaison who deals with the 65 agencies, not just technical agencies but the business folks. It really started in my office. I’m not going to claim that I’m good yet, but I’m certainly open to ideas. How can we use this? How can this make your job better? For me, it’s a critical function that’s going to be instrumental in our survival. A 22% staff reduction in the last two months. We’ve got to do things differently….
We’re beginning to see some great discussion among people who don’t communicate well together. We’ve had some discussions recently to make some differences in core technologies that will allow groups that don’t communicate well know what the other groups are doing. You’ve got to open up the opportunity for people to know what’s going on in those different functional areas.
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