Blogging Guidelines: People Should Blog, Not Zombies!

A few years ago, I spearheaded the brand-spanking new blogging program at a major software company. As part of that role, I wrote a treatise called "Blogging Guidelines" for all our novice bloggers. These bloggers were all senior management folks, and I knew just what kind of entries they'd deliver -- on the spectrum between "This guy is really neat - he has some really innovative ideas and I can't wait to meet him at the next conference" and "This diluted dribble sounds like it was created by the buzzword generator, then edited by 20 lawyers" well, they were off the chart (to the right). Yawn city.

Even so, I think management wanted the "Blogging Guidelines" to be a book of rules and regulations, but what I actually delivered was more of a pep talk. What I said in that paper can be boiled down to this:

Blog frequently, keep the entries short, and remember you're trying to start a conversation. Don't try too hard. Be yourself.

I think lot of corporate blogs completely miss the idea of "starting a conversation." If they'd focus on that aspect, and let their bloggers actually reveal some personality - the company becomes less of a monolithic presence and more of a network of people: people that other people want to meet and do business with.

One of my professors recently told us that a corporation is really just a collection of contracts. Don't let your bloggers think like him. Companies are made up of people, and those people should do your blogging. Bloggers don't have to be executives, they might be subject matter experts. But no matter what they need to be engaging.