If you were in any doubt about the emerging importance of blogging in business communications, then this announcement reported on Wired should effectively put those doubts to rest.
I think that it is safe to assume that we have reached the tipping point when you see these sorts of announcements. An Enterprise Edition of Wordpress strikes me as a significant indicator that corporate blogging is about to enjoy the sort of uptake that personal blogging has over the last 2-3 years.
However, before we get too caught up in the hype, as the article goes on to note the availability of the product is in no way equivalent to its success. Does this quote ring true for you?
Enterprise folks are notoriously slow to adopt new technologies, especially something like blogs, which many people in big business still see as “dangerous” and uncontrollable. Hopefully, this shift towards enterprise self-publishing will improve the speediness with which businesses react to customer demands.
It will also be entertaining to see how many businesses hop onto blogs without fully understanding the secret ingredients that make them unique — right before they fall on their faces.
I particularly like the bit about “dangerous and uncontrollable.” The whole issue of control is worthy of a post in itself…
I would also argue that the ingredients are not all that secret but, apart from that, I would second the cautionary note – in the public sector anyway. Not because I think that we aren’t ready for blogs, but because I don’t think that there are (currently) all that many situations where a blog would be the best solution for a communications strategy.
The glaring exception to this (sweeping) statement is internal comms. If your agency is looking at firing up an internal comms plan for a particular project, then I would urge you to consider a blog as a powerful tool to help communicate with your staff. Any takers?
