Blogging Corporativo Interno en Irlanda

"While Internet blogs grab all the headlines, the potential impact of internal blogging has been relatively ignored. There is no question that internal blogging (and let’s not forget internal RSS feeds) has the potential to make a major contribution to any corporate organization.

Internal blogging can amomgst other things:
* Help the collaborative work process
* Improve knowledge management across the firm
* Provide the firm with protection against the loss of employees
* Provide employees with the right information instantly.

These opportunities could have a major impact on the productivity and profitability of any organization".

Así es como empieza Tom Murphy su aportación sobre el blogging corporativo interno en Irlanda. Su aproximación a las compañías irlandesas para que le comentaran sus experiencias con el blogging corporativo interno fue complicada porque se mostraban reticentes (aún siendo muy positivas) a compartirlas. Encontrar ejemplos exitosos de blogging corporativo interno es difícil porque "companies often view this as a competitive advantage or have no interest in sharing their experience".

Murphy no ha tenido otro remedio que utilizar su propia compañía a modo de ejemplo. "Cape Clear Software has had formal internal blogs for the past three years. We use them in a variety of ways and we’re already seeing many benefits". Estos beneficios, en términos generales, se refieren a la comunicación interna, a la colaboración entre los empleados y a la Gestión del Conocimiento.


Internal Communications

"Although our intranet was not created using blog software, it has since 1999, been published using the same format as a blog with plain HTML files published in reverse chronological order. The intranet looks like a blog and it inclues entries on everything that’s happening within the organization. It provides a single source of information on every event, press releases, news story, initiative as well as personal milestones such as new babies, weddings etc. As someone who has been involved with many failed intranet initiatives, this has been a roaring success. Most employees have the intranet as their home page (it’s set up as default by our IS organization) and we get constant feedback on entries. We are currently planning to replace the current HTML structure with a blog platform in the coming months. The main advantage of moving to a formal blog structure is the automatic provision of RSS feeds which staff can subscribe to and then they will be automatically updated on new events etc".

Collaboration

"Our engineering organization has been using blogs since 2002 as part of their development process. There are a number of active blogs covering a range of subject areas such as discussions on new features and updates on specific projects. The blogs ensure that all our engineers are current on the status of any project and have an opportunity to participate in the engineering planning process. We also have specific blogs for different product releases which are archive once the product is shipped.

These development blogs have the additional bebenfit that new employees can quickly get up to speed on projects, status and issues by reading the archived posts. These blogs also publish internal RSS feeds which provide immediate updates to the entire organization".

Knowledge Management

"We use a number of internal blogs as central repositories for information on a specific topic. These differ from the development blogs because instead of focusing on a project they act as a single point of access for stories, resources etc. on the a specific technology area.

The advantage of using a blog is that because all that information is published in a blog format it is presented in a consisten manner and is automatically archived and searchable over our internal network, making it simple to find relevant information when it's required. This is a major departure over the traditional ways we managed
useful information from a whole host of different formats. Now there’s a single view that is accessible to everyone and with the published RSS feed that information is disseminated rapidly to the right people".

A pesar de que se trata de una compañía de software Murphy cree que el blogging corporativo interno podría ser muy útil para cualquier firma y, precisamente, menciona el caso de las agencias de RRPP:

"They could have a blog per account or account team, which provides a central resource for all information on an account. So it would include reports on client meetings, project updates, latest materials, measurement etc. The result is a much simpler and faster reporting process with the added benefit that the agency is protecting itself from the inevitable loss when employees leave, because now there is a repository of account knowledge available meaning that new and existing team members can be skilled up in a fraction of the time".

Murphy finaliza este artículo informando de que muchas compañías en Irlanda ya están abrazando el blogging corporativo interno. Es más, predice que para muchas organizaciones tendrá un gran impacto, mucho mayor que el publicitado "corporate blog". Supongo que se refiere al blogging corporativo externo.


* Corporate Blogging (Internal) - Ireland, por Tom Murphy, en IAOCblog, el 16 de junio de 2005