altfunction: corporate responsibility. media. technology. creativity.

Blogs, trust and corporate responsibility

Shel Israel and Robert Scoble have posted a new chapter to the Red Couch, focusing on how trust in Microsoft is being built by the 1500 bloggers within the company forging a new corporate reputation quite different from the 'capitalism red in tooth and claw' epitomised by Messers Gates and Ballmer.

I'm encouraged that blogging is beginning to be seen as a tool in the trust armoury. I've written elsewhere in altfunction about how the 'regular and often' communication approach you see with blogging can build relationships with customers and other stakeholders in ways that the one off, often dreary annual CSR report cannot.

This is not to say that a blog will make you some kind of leader in CSR, a quick hit, a shortcut. It won't but it could effect a change in tone towards being more approachable, accountable and transparent. To work it needs performance. The problem is that many companies experiencing a trust discount are doing some great stuff on making their values matter, responding to social and environmental issues in their core products but are being let down in their communications. These are the people who should be exploring blogs and wikis; though not necessarily to run as 'CSR blogs'. Scoble advocates personal blogs as opposed to corporate blogs.

The blogs I like and trust are those associated with a person who you can get to know. In some cases, therefore, perhaps the CEO is the right person (I'd like to see Lord Browne blogging, or Arun Sarin, perhaps) in others it may be someone in marketing, or even those middle managers like Scoble.

It is less about who blogs, and more the fact that people can blog that matters. Just as corporate responsibility needs to be embraced throughout companies as core to business values if it is to reap the most potential, the attitude shift within business to reap the further benefit of blogging must be seen throughout a business.

Then hand in hand, the two can build trust.

Scoble's Corporate Blogging Manifesto: the CR angle

Self-proclaimed Microsoft Geek Blogger, Robert Scoble, posted his Corporate Weblog Manifesto a few years back. It still has much to commend it and was developed through painful experiences in the past. (NB Scoble's first chapter of his book on business blogging is here)

It's my view that blogs can be a powerful tool for companies looking to 'do' corporate responsibility well. Much of what Scoble has to say is of direct relevance, so I've annoted his list with my own comments below. Alternatively, the link to his original 2003 post is above.

Thinking of doing a weblog about your product or your company? Here's my ideas of things to consider before you start.

1) Tell the truth. The whole truth. Nothing but the truth. If your competitor has a product that's better than yours, link to it. You might as well. We'll find it anyway.

Alt: Blogging is an opportunity to develop and maintain relationships with stakeholders. Relationships are built on trust and without the truth you have no trust and hence no relationships. It's also critical that you seek to be transparent - show you have nothing to hide.

Corporate ethics and creative leadership

There is some interesting stuff at the Thinking Ethics blog. Of particular relevance to altfunction is Stephen Whittle's post about how ethics is so often a matter of survival. What he says (below) puts me in mind of the need for creative leadership.

To many people, corporate ethics are 'thou shalt not'. What Whittle seems to be saying, is that real and demonstrable ethical behaviour frees individuals to act ethically and responsibly, but it only works when you walk the talk."

Ethics is not a matter of box ticking but encouraging people to think out their responsibility when right meets right.  Our challenge is how to both empower and enable our people without paralyzing them, building on the interest that is there and constructing an organizational environment in which thinking/subversion is celebrated. Ultimately, our authority will derive from the way we live our ethical commitment.* Our "audiences" will be looking for integrity of behavior and whether we live our values. We in turn will be encouraging them to accept their responsibility to exercise their citizenship.

*(My emphasis)

Link: thinkingethics.org.

Employee blogging

First there was the Waterstones blogger in the UK (asked to leave for thinly veiled candour online) and then there was Google's Mark Jen.

One obvious response from businesses will be to ask employees not to blog about work and add clauses to contracts to this effect. Of course many already have clauses to address confidentiality.

A more courageous approach is to engage with the blogging employees - it won't work in all cases, if the employee refuses to 'engage' of course it takes two to tango. The potential of an independent blog by an employee is clear:

It provides a window into what an employee thinks

It can become a lightning conductor for dissent and issues of concern that might not be raised through HR

It suggests a company treats its employees as adults - 'we trust you, are willing to take fair criticism and, in return, ask you to be fair too'

Ultimately, because it is unofficial a company can distance itself when necessary.

This is not to say there are equally significant risks and dangers, but when you get a reputation for having thin skin, unable to take criticism, you erode trust. Firing bloggers, who, if they are becoming an issue are by definition well connected and able to get rapid publicity, is unlikely to help.

Curiously, Jen is still 'powers Blogger', owned by guess who? Google.

Link: Curse of the blog strikes Google employee - silicon.com.

The trust discount

This feels like a PR-disaster in the making. McDonalds have been running a campaign around a tale of some small town American discovering a chip that 'looks' like Abraham Lincoln. There's even a blog. Thing is, according to Kevin Dugan's PRBlog: its all a fake.

I don't know how many people visit Dugan's blog - more than this one, I can confortably guess - but the real impact occurs when it hits an überblog like Gapingvoid with hundreds of thousands of hits a month and the influential likes of Jeff Jarvis and Tom Peters having a look: überblogger shall speak unto überblogger and the rest of us parasites feed off them.

As Malcolm Gladwell famously demonstrated in The Tipping Point: one link to a hub, and an idea spreads. Very fast. If the idea is 'McDonalds is faking', then the company loses trust. If the company then tries blogging again they have first to overcome the trust discount.

Blogs are an opportunity for openness and conversation: missing this opportunity is an own goal. Doh.