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Holtz Communications + Technology

Shel Holtz
Communicating at the Intersection of Business and Technology
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The CEO’s job

A letter to Business Week in response to the magazine’s cover story on blogging asks, “Is this really what we want our corporate leaders spending hours a day doing?”

Yes. Definitely.

In thinking this through, it’s important to put a corporate leader’s blogging efforts in context. Step back from the new technology and all the attention the software gets and consider what blogging is:

Communication.

Ask most CEOs what their job is, and they’ll tell you that communication represents a massive part of their responsibilities. (I once heard a CEO say the letters stand for “customers, employees, and owners,” the primary audiences with whom a CEO must be engaged. I liked that.) Blogs represent a new channel for communication. Not the only channel, to be sure, but a new one that may be better, in some cases, than the older channels. Imagine a CEO who rejected the telephone as a means of talking with investors just because it was new and different!

Neville and I interviewed the chairman of Holland’s Tulip Computers, who echoed this sentiment. His job, he said, was to communicate, and blogs provide him with a channel to do that more easily and in more of a two-way environment.

So, given that CEOs strategize the use of blogs as a communication channel that enhances or improves communication, yes, you bet. That’s what I want my corporate leaders spending hours a day doing.

05/17/05 | 1 Comment | The CEO’s job

Comments
  • 1.There are many ways for corporate leaders to lose the trust of their employees, and some of them are quite complex. However, one simple way of letting your employees tune out the CEO's messages is to have them appear at random times, with no consistent theme.

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