Chris Anderson of The Long Tail calls it “radical transparency” in a nice write up on his blog. I’ve been calling it a “revolution” or a “radical transformation” in corporate communications. (Yes I write about this in The Corporate Blogging Book.)
The top-down, command-and-control approach to communicating a company’s news and daily doings is giving way to something messier and more human. Namely, blogged bits and pieces, either from employees or from the CEO or other top execs, that tell a company’s story much more effectively than any press release or official pronouncement ever could.
Chris has some great examples:
– Mark Cuban (owner of the Dallas Mavericks), who blogs his specific thoughts about Google’s acquisition of YouTube and copyright issues
– Jason Knight, the CEO of Wesabe, is taking calls four hours a day from anyone who wants to call in and speak with him about Wesabe’s online financial management platform (this sounds cool but I’m a bit confused; maybe I’ll call him)
Update: Jason called *me* today out of the blue. He picked up this post through his RSS radar and decided to call and tell me more about his new company (which is getting fabulous mentions both in the blogosphere and MSM). Amazing, huh?!
A few examples I like to offer:
– Jonathan Schwartz blogging that he’s “been waiting all afternoon” to tell us “I had lunch with Tony Blair today…”
– GM exec Brian Akre blogging about The New York Times’ ban on ‘rubbish’ – i.e. the letter to the editor he could *not* get published in the Times in rebuttal to Tom Friedman’s critical column (subscription required) about GM’s gas credit. (Dozens of comments from readers support GM and are critical of The Times.)
[via Melcrum’s new blog – soon to be public]