NYT on CEO Blogging

AndyAndy Registered Users Posts: 50,016 Major grins
edited July 30, 2006 in The Big Picture
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NYT Story on CEO Blogging
NY Times wrote:
All the Internet’s a Stage. Why Don’t C.E.O.’s Use It?
By RANDALL STROSS

CHIEF executives are inclined to avoid activities generally deemed to be high-risk: Sky diving. Cliff jumping. Motorcycle racing. And blogging.

Two years ago, when Jonathan I. Schwartz, then the president and chief operating officer at Sun Microsystems, inaugurated a blog that made him the most senior executive at his company to venture onto such a publicly visible platform, he embraced the risks. “Hey, life is short,” he wrote on the first day, as if he were about to leap from a plane. The title of that first post was “Head First.” Mr. Schwartz not only survived the plunge, he turned out to be a natural. In a voice that is refreshing in its unprocessed directness, he discusses big-picture trends in the computer industry, promotes Sun’s wares and tweaks competitors, and reports on the odd epiphany experienced while on the road or engaged in intellectual combat with industry friends and adversaries. The regularity of his posts, which blend serious content and an informal writing style, and their wide-ranging scope make this blog the apotheosis of expository writing: thought made visible.

When Mr. Schwartz was promoted to the top job at Sun this spring, he automatically became a member of an elite group: Fortune 500 C.E.O. bloggers. He is the only active member.

Where is everyone else?

Capital markets function as they should when the flow of information is strong and unimpeded. Mr. Schwartz has shown ably that for the chief executive sincerely interested in increasing information flow to the fullest range of stakeholders, a blog is a hydraulic wonder.

Many companies, eager to claim that their dearest wish is to draw ever closer to outside constituencies, boast that they encourage blogging among employees. Microsoft, for example, says that it has more than 3,000 employees who maintain blogs on the company’s Web site, an impressive number. But a large company is an outsize elephant, and each employee works within a tiny wrinkle on the hide. Only the chief executive is in a position to sit astride the beast and share the widest perspective. The fact that Microsoft’s chief executive, Steven A. Ballmer, and its chairman and former chief executive, Bill Gates, have chosen not to blog leaves an embarrassing silence at the top that the combined clacking of those underlings cannot fill.

... much more in the story...

SmugBlogs !

We're not Fortune 500, yet, but it's nice to be out in front on some things, eh?
Andy

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