I'll start by saying that we don't have one at Compendium. Maybe at some point we'll have to reconsider the parameters we put around our corporate blogging strategy (I've learned to never say never), but right now, the sheer power of the Compendium administrative interface is enough for us and many of our clients.
The problem with rules and policies is that many times, they squelch the very spirit of the initiative at hand. I don't think it's any different when it comes to business blogging programs. Like most businesses, here at Compendium, we want our employees to be able to express their views and opinions in a natural way, but at the same time, we want to protect our company.
We do not have an intensive review process for the content generated by our employees. Quite simply, after they write their content, it gets submitted to an administrator account where it can be reviewed and a) approved if it's okay or b) declined if it is inappropriate or needs to be changed. More often than not, declined posts are not marked as such because they contain inappropriate content, but because they have an obvious typo, error, or perhaps are completely off-topic.
Note that there are no editing capabilities on the part of the admin -- which completely removes the temptation to edit someone else's content. Again, I want our employee's content to be their own...why change it when I can empower them to do so, without any risk to Compendium?
And why go to the great lengths of putting a policy and all sorts of rules in place when I can easily view content before it goes live and make a decision from there?
I'm not saying that a blogging policy isn't a good idea for some organizations, but before putting policies and rules in place, it's usually a good idea to think about the trade-offs...and better yet, if technology can be the answer.
The problem with rules and policies is that many times, they squelch the very spirit of the initiative at hand. I don't think it's any different when it comes to business blogging programs. Like most businesses, here at Compendium, we want our employees to be able to express their views and opinions in a natural way, but at the same time, we want to protect our company.
We do not have an intensive review process for the content generated by our employees. Quite simply, after they write their content, it gets submitted to an administrator account where it can be reviewed and a) approved if it's okay or b) declined if it is inappropriate or needs to be changed. More often than not, declined posts are not marked as such because they contain inappropriate content, but because they have an obvious typo, error, or perhaps are completely off-topic.
Note that there are no editing capabilities on the part of the admin -- which completely removes the temptation to edit someone else's content. Again, I want our employee's content to be their own...why change it when I can empower them to do so, without any risk to Compendium?
And why go to the great lengths of putting a policy and all sorts of rules in place when I can easily view content before it goes live and make a decision from there?
I'm not saying that a blogging policy isn't a good idea for some organizations, but before putting policies and rules in place, it's usually a good idea to think about the trade-offs...and better yet, if technology can be the answer.
Comments for Should You Have a Blogging Policy?
Leave a comment