Business 2.0 – Web Article – Management by Blog?
“It’s only a matter of time before we have a blogging system that’s able to measure the intellectual climate of employees, that can get at the sorts of questions that managers need to know the answers to. What do people think of the new parking garage? What are smart people talking about? What’s on their minds? It’s a great, nonintrusive way of seeing what is happening in your organization.”
[ . . . . . ] Many employees might feel that such a system is akin to management eavesdropping on water-cooler discussions.
Such systems are not for every company, and they’re far from widespread. And such success depends entirely on an individual firm’s culture. If the company personality is too buttoned-up or secretive, a blog initiative will either fail to take off (there’s nothing lonelier than a blog that doesn’t get updated) or deteriorate into something unhealthy. The internal blogs that succeed will be safe, clean, well-lit virtual places in which diverse opinions are welcome and ideas — not people — are judged. Companies should always explore new ways of getting messages out and new tactics for fostering idea-exchange among the staff, but right now the blogging action is almost exclusively for external readers.
I think there’s merit in this idea but it depends on what employees are allowed/encouraged to record for public consumption.
Even if a constellation of weblogs were created but limited by ACLs (access control lists) to internal users only, it would be a good knowledge sharing tool for cultures that don’t already have one.
Thanks to Wade for this one.