501derful.org
This site is an interesting blog posting about the new site LA.confidential. It is a blog hosted by the news conglomerate that holds USA TODAY and a handful of other new outlets such as TV stations etc. One concern point in the article is that by design blogs are counter government, corporation, or any other type of centralized control. The blog gives the user control and a blog being hosted by a major news corporation … hmmm A very interesting read.
Randy, an interesting article all right. I’m skeptical about corporate blogging—by that I mean blogs for public consumption sponsored by companies or organizations. Blogs are about candor and personal expression or they don’t offer anything new. The corporate blogs I’ve seen are just another way to do marketing and, therefore, lack the frankness that makes blogs interesting and credible. Corporate communications are what I call “groomed. ” They are prepared by professionals who relentlessly present the most positive possible image. For that reason I think they lack full credibility. You’re always asking yourself after reading something prepared by the PR department, “Okay, what aren’t you telling me?” That applies to ACS too as far as I’m concerned.
FI Space isn’t what I think of as a corporate blog in the sense that it isn’t available to the public. That shelter gives us a little more room to be off the cuff. In the Meet the Authors section there is a disclaimer that the posting represent the individual, not the Society. I think that should be the case anyway: be responsible for your opinions. However, I would like to make people feel it’s safe to contribute ideas that are their own and may differ from official Society positions or the opinions of higher-ups. I write some things that I don’t think you’d find elsewhere in the Society hopefully to show that you aren’t necessarily risking everything to have an off-the-wall opinion.