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Shel Holtz
Communicating at the Intersection of Business and Technology
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Balancing blogs’ credibility

In yesterday’s “For Immediate Release,” I noted that Joseph Edward Duncan had maintained a blog. Duncan, in case you’re not following the story, was found in a Coeur d’Alene, Idaho restaurant with a young girl who, along with her brother, had been missing for about six weeks following the disocvery of the bludgeoned bodies ofher mother, her mother’s boyfriend, and an older brother. The blog is no longer available, but archives of posts can be read on the Internet Archive and in IN-Forum of Fargo, North Dakota. The final two entries are, according to one commentator, “highly distressing, so don’t read them unless you want to be REALLY upset…”

The story is noteworthy as a bit of balance to the purist belief that blogs and the authentic human voice applied to posts are some sort of panacea for communication. Duncan blogged in an authentic human voice. Sick, but authentic.

Now, today comes a line buried in an AP story appearing across the web in online newspapers about the release of Karla Homolka, the notorious Canadian serial killer who was released as part of her plea bargain that resulted in her testimony against her ex-husband, Paul Bernardo. Here’s the paragraph:

Earlier Monday, one of her attorneys, Christian Lachance, told Quebec Superior Court Judge Maurice Lagace that his client was too afraid to testify at the hearing to consider a media blackout. Because Homolka???s safety could not be assured by police, he said the media must be prevented from reporting her whereabouts to protect her from threats against her life, mostly by Internet bloggers.

Homolka doesn’t deserve a pass for her horrific crimes, but it doesn’t serve the cause of blogging purists when most of the death threats are coming from bloggers. Instead, it reinforces the perception many still have of blogs as the communication vehicle of choice for people on the fringe, the not-quite-normal. Of course, this perception is wrong, but (as any PR person worth his or her salt can recite in his or her sleep), perception is reality. CEOs and other business leaders who keep reading about these ignoble uses of blogs will be more inclined to dismiss their potential as a corporate communication channel. “Why would I want to put our organization out there in the company of weirdos and perverts?”

Business blogging purists insist that a blog must conform to an ideal. Character blogs, for example, deviate from the idea and therefore must be resisted. But in the real world, where blogs are used for whatever, there is no compulsion to adhere to any idea. People use blogs for whatever they want.

Business blogs should certainly adhere to principles of effective communication. In a strategic planning process, a business goal would have to be supported by the use of a blog and measurable outcomes produced. We should understand the medium well enough to avoid embarrassing the company or earning the contempt of our audiences. But the increasing of blogs for impure purposes should help us understand that blogs are, ultimately, a tool, and like any tools, they can be used for good or (can you hear it coming?) evil. They can be used for companies to engage in a meaningful dialogue with customers, for authors to solicit feedback on comleted first drafts of chapters of their books, for soap operas, to presentnew fiction, as a way to bring a fictitious character to life, for individuals to opine about issues of the day, for death threats, and as outlets for one’s sickness. The sooner we recognize this, the sooner we can position blogs as tools, presenting them as solutions to specific communication problems rather than as the solution to all communication problems.

07/07/05 | 19 Comments | Balancing blogs’ credibility

Comments
  • 1.So you take the defense attorney's words at face value, without question?

    I'm also interested to find some of the business blogging purists you keep referring to - God knows I've been accused of being one before, and even I have told companies flat-out NOT to blog, because their authentic voice is closer to a snarl or a growl. And I've never come across anyone peddling that panacea line, though I do come across a lot of people lamenting that it is. So to find that there are people who think that even companies that are unsuitable for blogging should be doing so, and that blog is a communications panacea, is intriguing. You've got me hooked, Shel!

    Jackie Danicki | July 2005 | London

  • 2.Hi, Jackie...

    Whether the defense attorney's correct or not misses the point. AP is REPORTING what he's saying. People who don't read blogs read the papers that carry AP stories, so the perception is created, accurate or not.

    As for purists, consider the statement Steve Rubel made: "Blogs are PR with candor." Or read the stuff over at The Red Couch...

    Shel Holtz | July 2005

  • 3.Interesting post, Shel. We don't always agree, though - in more cases than not - we do.

    So I was intrigued by your comments "People use blogs for whatever they want... (and later) for individuals to opine about issues of the day."

    That really resonates with me. There are good and bad examples of company newsletters, brochures, Web sites, net newsrooms, internal memos, town hall meetings... you name it. What's right is highly subjective. [Oh sure, one can measure to objectives, but then we're talking an ideal, not the majority. I still see a ton of corporate communication that is leader driven - based on the leader's perception of communication, biases, and personal likes and dislikes. Just about every communicator I know has thrown their hands up at one point or another, after being overruled on a communication issue.]

    And I suspect this is why it's hard for some to wrap their heads around blogs: they can be anything, or nothing. Like you say, it's just a tool.

    How business uses them depends on what is effective in a particular instance. If a character blog draws an audience, so be it. We are all adults and can choose what to read, and what not to read.

    Personally, I don't always care what other people opine about. Which is ironic, since that's my opinion. The amount of opinion found in blogs may be what some people find disconcerting or challenging. This technology opens the door to informal communication more than some others.

    Perhaps blogs are like soap boxes. People have made the connection to conversations and dialogs, and I agree they can be whatever the hell the writer wants them to be - noble or not.

    Many parks, notably Hyde Park in London, have speaker's corners. Perhaps blogs are the next iteration of an age old human endeavor - speaking out.

    Charles Pizzo | July 2005 | New Orleans, LA (USA)

  • 4.So how is a blog different from any other medium that has come down the pike over the last 100 years? It is no different. It is new and it will take some time for the dust to settle and for corporate communicators to discover the value a blog might bring to the organization's communication arsenal. Might be that blogs don't serve a useful purpose in one company, but a highly useful purpose in another. Sort of like IMs, face-to-face meetings, print publications, huddles on the shop floor, whatever.

    It's too early to declare the blog a panacea or a failure. But it's exciting to be on the front end of a new medium. Rather than jump on -- or off -- the blogging bandwagon, how about if communicators do the necessary work of strategic communication planning to determine if there is a place for such a tool in their organizations?

    That might be asking too much! :-)

    Robert J Holland | July 2005 | Richmond, Va.

  • 5.Hi, Robert.

    Well, yeah, it's no different than other tools, if you lump the printing press in there with "tools" (which, of course, it is). It's a very powerful tool, but a tool nonetheless. It's the strategic planning bit that I keep hammering on. When I hear "Blogs will replace press releases" or "Blogs can replace PR," I just tense up and want to grab someone by the lapels and shout, "You're talking TACTICS! How do you know they'll produce the OUTCOMES?? You need to be STRATEGIC!!!"

    Shel Holtz | July 2005 | Concord, CA

  • 6.Amen, brother!!!

    Robert J Holland | July 2005 | Richmond, Va

  • 7.Ditto. Thrilled to see you SHOUT about it, Shel.

    I still hear a lot of people talk about outputs, not outcomes, e.g., how many newsletters or press releases, versus the impact they generated.

    Maybe that distinction is lost - something communication associations and publishers need to bring home. Alas, I'm preaching to the choir.

    Charles Pizzo | July 2005 | New Orleans, LA (USA)

  • 8.Yes, you are preaching to the choir, Charles. Unfortunately, many of our associations and other marketers of seminars/workshops are still too focused on tactics because that's what they say their customers want. So does that mean we should dumb down the profession by just talking tactics all the time? I think we should be raising the conversation to a higher level instead.

    Robert J Holland | July 2005 | Richmond, Va.

  • 9.Robert, .et .al, does anyone else get a sense reading this interchange of "deja vu all over again?"

    Agree that the conversation should be at a higher level. But the strategy vs. tactics debate has been going on for 15 years (with us leading the way in advocating strategy every step of the way).

    What's it going to take to get people in the profession to live up to their potential or is it really a lost cause?

    Craig Jolley | July 2005

  • 10.Well, of COURSE this is deja vu!! I think all of us who have taken the time to educate ourselves in strategic communication over the years recognize that.

    But as long as influential people and organizations keep beating the drum about "who has time for strategy when there's so much work to do," we'll see the debate continue.

    For example, I cannot believe the Ragan publications keep talking about strategy like it's some kind of intellectual exercise with no practical application (i.e., a total waste of communicators' time). My personal belief is they're just trying to "sell papers," but Ragan editors also need to realize they (and others like IABC, PRSA, etc.) help set the agenda for our profession. That's what I mean when I say we have a responsibility to raise the conversation to a higher level. As long as I'm part of the profession, I'll do my part, but it's definitely an uphill battle to get people in our profession to live up to our potential.

    Until we do, we collectively don't have a lot of room to complain when we find ourselves with little or no influence in our organizations.

    Robert J Holland | July 2005 | Richmond, Va.

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