CROSSING THE CORPORATE BLOGGING CULTURAL DIVIDE: THE CULTURAL CHASM

We developed a diagram (next page) that illustrates the process of a company crossing the corporate blogging cultural divide. By developing a corporate culture around openness and transparency, and focusing on their customers' ideas and feedback, a company can gain even more from their customers. The left side of the divide represents companies who are blogging but have not totally embraced the concept of openness. The right side represents a great openness in terms of sharing ideas and internal thinking about future products, as in the case of Macromedia. We're not making any judgments about one side being bad and one being good. There are pros and cons to both modes. As you can see in the diagram, based on our discussions with bloggers at the three companies, we place IBM and Macromedia on opposite sides of the divide and Microsoft is somewhere in the middle. We believe that IBM is on the opposite bank of the cultural divide; it must be said that IBM is gaining a lot from its external blogs in terms of thought leadership, links, high search engine rankings, and community recognition, and is a leader in corporate blogging. However, according to our interview with the IBM blogger, IBM's external blogging strategy is not as developed as its internal blogging strategy. When a company crosses the corporate blogging cultural divide, a company carries all of the benefits and opportunities blogging presents, once over the bridge a company can expect greater opportunity.

Microsoft is in the middle of the bridge at the moment. Once crossed, as Macromedia's example demonstrates, customers become blogging brand champions, better products are developed, even more links and higher search engine rankings are achieved. While crossing the corporate blogging cultural divide makes sense for some companies, especially product companies; we believe the idea may not make sense for every company.