More on this intriguing topic: should GM’s Fastlane blog, osensibly focused on products (i.e. cars), be talking about or making direct reference to the recent news that the #3 company on the Fortune 500 is planning another round of massive layoffs, etc.
From Shel Holtz: GM isn’t censoring Fastlane
From Stephen Davies: Should the GM blog address layoffs?
From Dave Taylor: Further discussion about the GM Fastlane blog
Call me a corporate stoodge… but I still agree with my earlier position that the Fastlane bloggers don’t need to say much about GM’s financial woes, at least not directly.
However, as I said in March 2005 about Corporate tell-it-not blogs, the GM bloggers do need to acknowledge the elephant in the room. (A number of executives contribute to the blog in addition to Bob Lutz.)
And I do wish Fastlane would tone down the cheeriness a tad… it does strike a truly discordant note with what’s in the news these days about GM (declining market share, declining stock price, you name it).
It will be interesting to see how they handle the bad news on the blog going forward.
From the how-to-say-it without saying it department
Michael Wiley, GM’s Director of New Media and a member of the Fastlane blog team, left this comment on Dave Taylor’s Intuitive Life blog [scroll down to the third comment]:
“You’re right that blogging at GM is a balancing act of many different
stories, stakeholders and approaches that constantly demands focus. We
decided early on that the blog’s primary focus is on product, product
development, vehicle design and quality. A vehicle company’s reason for
existence is to sell cars, so the selling piece gets some attention,
too. Corporate issues such as staffing levels [my edit: layoffs] and facility usage [er, factory shut-downs] are
not the blog’s focus.”
Michael, I know you well. It’s OK to use the word layoffs, really.
On the other hand… I just thought of this.
Michael is savvy enough to know that someone doing a fine-tooth combed search for “GM” and “lay-offs” on Google just might unearth the comment he left on Dave Taylor’s blog. And I suspect he’d rather his words not come up in that search result. No dumb bunny, he.
Weird and woolly…