Blogging versus e-mailing within organisations

An issue that has often been raised during my research about blogging in organisations is that surely you could write in an e-mail message what you might in a blog post? Is there the need to use a blog to post messages to colleagues when you could simply e-mail what you had to say? Most organisational employees would argue that accessing internal e-mail would be easier than having to search for their company or departmental blog (e.g. on their Intranet or wherever the blog was hosted). Furthermore, dependant upon whom and how many individuals you were sending your e-mail to, e-mails might be viewed as being more private than adding a ‘communal’ post to a blog. With an e-mail, you can also attach documents to it as likewise you can share documents on a blog. Blogs though allow you to upload various types of media file such as video and multi-media graphics.

The main distinction and individuality that I see between blogs and e-mail use within organisations is one of format. The way in which blogs are designed makes them more presentable and easier to use in terms of searching for and locating relevant information. The information contained within blogs is stored chronologically. So if you know the precise information you are looking for it should be easier to ascertain as opposed to looking through countless e-mail folders or trawling through your inbox. The more an individual uses their blog within their organisation, accessing it should become a mere formality and less time consuming to do as first initially thought.

It could be argued that e-mail is a more efficient organisational communication medium when a ‘quick’ response to a question or query is required. A comment to a blog post may not be as initially instant. However, the useful thing about blogs is that when such a response to a post does occur the information contained within it can be stored in a logically presentable way for future reference when called upon in the future.