When creating an organisational blog it is always advisable to create a set of blog guidelines. Blog guidelines are a good way of providing guidance and direction to employees who may be using a corporate blog for the first time. They are a point of reference for blog users to consult should they require clarification about what issues they should consider when about to use a blog in their company for the first time. An organisation that is using a blog for the first time may find that their blog guidelines might change through feedback and suggestions for improvement/modification from indviduals using the blog. It is important for employees to become familiar with their organisation’s or department’s blog guidelines prior to commencing blogging. Blog guidelines should be written in such a way that they encourage employees to blog, they should help to ‘sell the blog’ and reaffirm the purpose of the blog. Knowing your company and your organisational members is important when establishing blog guidelines. When creating a set of company blog guidelines it is important to ensure that the guidelines do not omit a sense of restriction in terms of use though they should also allow employees to openly share ‘best practice’, thoughts and ideas in an open and unconfined way.
Some good examples of corporate blog guidelines can be found via:
Coinciding with the concept of the corporate blog is the notion of the CEO (Chief Executive Officer) blog. Though corporate blogging is gradually gaining momentum, the creation of a CEO blog by an executive in an organisation may be one approach towards facilitating the notion of blog use in a company. Blogging that is led from ‘the top’ in an organisation may inspire other company members to blog and provide others with the reasurance that they have the support from ‘the top’ to do so (though adhering to company policy/guidelines). A CEO blog has the ability to engage all employees in a company, allowing them to read an Executive’s thoughts, be kept up-to-date about company initiatives, board member meetings and more importantly provide feedback and comments to the ideas of senior hierarchy. CEO blogs also possess the potential to make company employees feel part of their organisation in the sense that their ‘voice’ or ‘opinion’ matters.
However, it could also be argued that CEO blogs may have the unintentional adverse affect of not facilitating the concept of blogging in an organisation as there may be a reluctance from staff to post comments and provide feedback. There most certainly needs to be an element of trust and confidence for a CEO blog to be successful.
An interesting interactive video that I came across on the VIZEdu website iterates the important issue of corporate and top management support to make a corporate blog successful.
I came across this video on YouTube by a company called Common Craft that covers the topic of “Blogs in Plain English” very well indeed. It is well presented, clear and concise and helps to clarify what exactly blogs are and how they differ from other forms of online social media.
I also came across another good video on YouTube showing an example of a blog, its features and explaining how blogs differ from traditional websites. This video can also be viewed on the Pajama Market website, the creators of the video.
I am currently enjoying reading an excellent book that addresses practical aspects about developing and running a weblog. The book in question is called “The Weblog Handbook: Practical Advice on Creating and Maintaining Your Blog” by Rebecca Blood. I wish I had been able to find this book much earlier in my research, especially prior to using this blog. For anyone new to the area of blogs or even contemplating starting one, this book is a must read as it covers such topics as the history of weblogs, why use a weblog, practical advice on how to design and sustain one as well as a host of other essentail aspects relating to the Blogosphere. I feel that what sets this book apart from other books written about weblogs is that the book is written from the personal experience and views of the author – this I feel adds to the readability of the book and adds to the reasurrance that the author has direct experience of what she is writing/talking about.
I am so happy to hear that the journal papers that I have recently submitted for two special issues have been accepted for publication. One paper examines: “How can organisations learn: an information systems development perspective” and the other paper is entitled: “The socialisation of organisational learning through learning technology.” The writing and subsequent publication of these papers has been a very rewarding experience for me due to the numerous peer reviews and revisions required for each paper.
Though I feel that I have been fortunate to get two papers published as this stage of my thesis, I still consider myself to be undergoing the learning process about publishing in the world of academia. The best piece of advice I would give anyone wishing to publish a paper for the first time is to try and identify and target journals that are relevant to your discipline. It is also good to try and submit to special issues as this means that you are writing to a specified time frame and you’ll also know when your paper will be published (subject to acceptance). I usually just do regular searches on google and type in word combinations such as “organisational learning special issue” etc. Sometimes it is also worthwhile to search on the journal websites themselves or subscribe to their newsletters which keep you informed of new journal titles, special issues and any news deemed relevant to prospective authors.
A final piece of advice I would give to anyone starting out writing and submitting a journal paper for the first time is not to be too down-hearted if you receive any negative feedback or comments from the reviewers. What I have found is that it appears to be the norm that there is always usually one reviewer who is more critical than the other. The best thing to do is to acknowledge and thank them for their feedback and address their comments and defend your research paper/position in a non-aggressive manner. Normally, the reviewers are providing you with constructive critiicism and feedback so they are generally trying to be more helpful than obstructive. These are just some of my initial observations about writing and submitting papers…
Gavin Baxter
