How a closed-down company like Microsoft confronted blogging and then came to embrace it:
"What Pryor had done to set off this uproar was outfit a team of five
people, himself included, with camcorders and turn them loose on the
company to interview engineers about their jobs and their products.
Then he posted the clips — unvetted and largely unedited — to a Web
site that anyone, inside or outside the company, could see and comment
on. He and his team expected the initiative to be controversial, so,
except for the executives backing it, they told almost no one in the
company. "The key," Pryor says, "was to not draw too much attention to
ourselves." By lying low, Pryor headed off preemptive opposition. But
when Channel 9 launched, executives in PR, marketing, and legal reacted
with alarm. "They didn't take it well at first," Pryor tells me."
"Today, Channel 9 is one of the few things at Microsoft that company
image mavens love to talk about. Google is kicking Microsoft's butt in
search; Vista, its new operating system, is getting tepid reviews.
Zune, its iPod killer, can't kill a flea. And Nintendo's Wii, not the
Xbox 360, is the hottest game console in town. Channel 9, on the other
hand, makes Microsoft look downright visionary. No large company — with
the possible exception of Sun Microsystems — is as far along in
understanding how the Internet changes the way employees connect with
suppliers, customers, shareholders, and peers. The goal is clear:
Reestablish Microsoft as a cool, progressive enterprise that appeals to
customers, investors, and top job prospects. While the rest of
corporate America is scrambling to figure out whether it wants to allow
blogging at all, famously guarded, control-freak Microsoft has embraced
the idea of transparency with messianic fervor."
You can check out Channel 9 and consider what is stopping you from being more transparent and whether you're gaining anything from hesitating.
