The issue of anonymous reader comments continues to perplex Ragan Communications editors, per Steve Crescenzo’s article. But of even greater concern to me is the comment to Steve’s article left by internal communications icon Roger D’Aprix:

How sad that grown men and women are unable to own their words or restrain their emotions. It’s especially sad that they are so-called ‘communicators.’ And people want to bring this sort of anarchy into their companies to compete with communications that matter? The major newspapers are experiencing the same phenomena (see yesterday’s Sunday NY Times’ Week in Review for an excellent piece on the subject as well as several columns on the problem in other newspapers, whose editors began with the desire for intelligent reader dialogue and wound up with having to deal with mean spirited and ignorant ranting.) Why would anyone want to facilitate anonymous internal blogging in their organizations to invite the same uncivil debates? Beware of the hype and those who would unleash these unproductive behaviors inside our organizations.

I am troubled by a couple of Roger’s points:

• The assertion that internal blogs would compete with “communications that matter,” presumably the one-way, top-down communication crafted by communication professionals. I think there’s a huge difference between formal communication and employee conversations facilitated by blogs.
• The notion that internal blogging is an unproductive behavior. In every environment I’m familiar with where internal blogging has been introduced, the company has experienced productivity gains, not losses.

I’m encouraging all readers of this blog to click on over to Steve’s post and leave a comment about the value of internal social media, blogs in particular. I’ll be leaving my own comment shortly.