Liz Strauss

The usual debate within a company about whether to start a blog is how to handle negative comments. It’s true there will be some. Free speech and negative people seem to go together. Some complaints and criticism on blogs are valid and respectfully said. Others, well, they just are not.

I guess it all comes down to whether we fear our customers more than we want to get to know them.

The Rutland Herald has an excellent article, Blogs increase business branding, on company blogs. Despite the title, their coverage shows both the pros and cons. Here’s a snip from the center.

Blog proponents have a favorite word: conversation.

It’s the way they sum up their arguments for why businesses should take a serious look at blogging. The blog, they say, is a way for you or your company to talk to customers, fans, supporters and, yes, even critics.

“Companies are starting to realize there are conversations taking place online that they can be a part of,” said Josh Hallett, a Winter Haven, Fla.-based blog consultant, whose customers include the Orlando Sentinel. “Those conversations are going on right now, whether you like it or not.”

Still, the free-flowing nature of blogging can be tough for some companies and organizations to stomach, said Hallett, whose own blog is at hyku.com/blog.

After all, do you really want to provide your critics with a platform from which to smack you in the mouth?

Last summer, MetroPlan Orlando, the transportation planning agency for much of Central Florida, started a blog with the idea of encouraging the public to get involved in transportation debates.

The experiment lasted about two months. The agency pulled the plug after tiring of critical comments posted by anti-tax and anti-toll activists.

Then there’s Microsoft and employee Robert Scoble. The so-called technical evangelist writes on his Scobleizer blog (scobleizer.wordpress.com) about a wide range of tech issues, and is not shy about criticizing the software giant.

It’s that willingness by Microsoft to allow itself to be lambasted by its own employee — as well as the people who post comments on the blog — that gains the company respect on the Internet, said Matt Certo, president of WebSolvers Inc., a Web site developer in Winter Park.

[This article via The Blogging Times]

I think it’s reasonable that some company cultures and maybe some industries are not conducive to the conversation that is a blog. However, as I write this, I can’t seem to think of an example . . . the industries that come to mind are already blogging in some way. What could be more fraught with trolls, critics, and folks who want to make negative statements about the competition than politics? Four of the Top Ten Blogs in the 37 Million on the Technorati Index and Search Engine of Blogs are Political Blogs.

Liz Strauss

It was almost 17 years ago that I met a wise and observant British friend of mine. He was a world traveler, who, at that time, spent 100 or so days in the United States each year. In that first conversation, I asked him what he like about Americans. With a quick thought, he answered, “I like your sense of irony. I’m afraid we lack that in my country.”

That exchange comes back to me when I think of Dan Rather interviewed by a blogger in the zdnet.com article, Dan Rather on the state of American media by Dan Farber. I suspect it hadn’t been part of Mr. Rather’s career plan, even in recent years, to meet with a “citizen journalist,” the title now given to serious bloggers.

I offer two interesting quotes from the article — one on the mainstream media

The press is “a wee bit less timid today, perhaps because the President’s approval ratings are down, but “American journalism is in desperate need of a spine transplant,” he said.

Rather admitted that fear played a role in his own decision making and is evident across every newsroom. After 9/11, there was a fear of being called “unpatriotic” if a reporter asked tough questions about the war. If the Internet, cable and “what passes as news programming” were to hang an unpatriotic sign on a journalists, they could lose air time or their jobs, Rather explained.

the second on blogging

When asked about blogging, Rather said that big, multinational companies [like Viacom, which owns CBS] are controversy averse and fearful of getting negative responses from blogs. How backwards. If CBS had understood the impact of the Internet and bloggers, the Bush National Guard papers debacle could have been handled with less upheaval, Rather said. “I had no idea of the power of the Internet, particularly bloggers, including some with partisan, ideological agendas.”

Rather says he hopes his best work is still ahead of him. He was later interviewed by the first blogger Dave Winer of Scripting News. They discuss whether Rather will himself take up blogging the news.

What troubles me about this interview is that Mr. Rather was a journalist and a reporter BEFORE he was a news anchor. Though he admits the problem of a spineless media, how could it be so self-involved not to know the possible impact of the blogger culture?

Not every American should necessarily be aware or up to date on blogging, but one would think a reporter of his stature would.

Liz Strauss