Provocative discussion in the first panel this morning – the last day of BlogCon 2003. Halley Suitt invited feedback on her case study published in the Sept. 2003 issue of Harvard Business Review: “A blogger in our midst… ” Briefly, the case study laid out the situation of glove girl, a renegade product manager who’s stirred up a following with her no-holds-barred Weblog about her personal life as well as her company’s products (surgical gloves). One response to her “unauthorized” blogging would be to fire her. Another, proposed by Ed Cone, was to promote her and give her a raise. Endorse her, empower her and give her a platform.
Question: can you bring a blog with a distinctive personal voice in-house? Is there a fundamental disconnect between corporate communication and personal expression? The fictional company in this case study would need to create a blogging policy and require glove girl to observe the basic tenets of “do no harm” and “use good judgment.” I’d like to think she could continue blogging in the same voice. But now I wonder…