Blogging Goes Mainstream Seminar in NY Last Week
I attended the Blogging Goes Mainstream Seminar in NY last week along with Regina Miller of The Seventh Suite, my fellow New York HR blogger. I thought I might comment on some of the workplace issues that were apparent, even though the conference was geared toward marketing.
Robert Scoble, keynote (and author of the Scobleizer Weblog), noted that the corporate culture in which he works (Microsoft), welcomes dissent. This culture enables him to challenge the status quo openly (and professionally) in his blog. Obviously, there are several key points:
- A culture of dissent supports the ability of employees to challenge the status quo, regardless of the medium. Companies either have it or they don't. Robert mentioned that he does not blog at work, and does it all on his own time. If he challenges the status quo (like his recent challenge of Balmer on diversity), he is not unlike any other employee at Microsoft who can do so.
- Regarding voicing dissent, there's something to be said about being professional. I haven't taken a position on whether the Delta flight attendant should have been fired for her photos in her uniform, but whether the photos were on a blog, or posted on a bulletin board, it seems to me that posing for those shots probably wasn't a great career decision in the first place. Someone who voices his dissent, slams or disparages their company in an unprofessional manner, or is just plain unprofessional on a blog or elsewhere, probably is going to find themselves in trouble some day anyway.
- With all of the hype about blogging, a related issue to me is not blogging, per se, but the willingness of employees to speak out about things that have nothing to do with the workplace on subjects of interest to them. The employee who has interests which may not "fit" with the stuffy corporate culture in which he works, isn't going to get fired for blogging, but rather fired for communicating those interests or beliefs - whether on a blog or otherwise. Blogging just creates a new medium.
Also noted in the conference was the idea the extent to which consumers, or purchasers in general, search the web for intelligence prior to making decisions. This means that in the workplace, our employees are likely surveying the web for information and intelligence on how to do their jobs, information about customers, vendors, the industry and the like. Traditional research methods are likely being replaced by the web. I'm reminded of this as I tell my students that a Google search is not academic research. But, for many practical uses, it has become a viable way to collect a vast amount of information on a subject.
Regina noted the obvious - that there were probably only 2 HR people in the room of hundred (that would be she and I!). OK, so I know the conference was directed at marketing, but if I was in corporate HR, I'd want to see the impact of blogs on the workplace and how blogs change the way we market our products as a company. For HR, they should be interested in how we market to our constituents, the community and potential recruits. Seems like there should have been more HR folks there. Unfortunately, most HR folks will be waiting until some big stuffy law firm (that has never blogged) has distilled blogging down into some corporate policy discussion before getting engaged in the topic - pretty disappointing!
On a more interesting note, I did meet a few people there interested in using blogging as an internal medium for knowledge management and for team/departmental communication - rather than the traditional external communication which is the focus of most blogs. They discussed using the blog as a forum to share information and as a way to keep people engaged. Very interesting.