Internal Corporate Blogging – Lesson 4

Here is the latest about my experience implementing and working with an internal blog for a large Swiss bank. I am documenting this learning process for myself and for all those that will be confronted to that kind of projects in the future.

As it has been widely said the word blog does not necessarily strike a cord with everybody. Things are getting better but there is still a long way to go. One of the thing we anticipated and that is absolutely true is the following:

Don’t blog. Communicate, discuss, write, narrate.

It again might sound obvious but it is very important, even more in a corporate and closed environment where most people will be confronted to your communication about the site before they are confronted to the actual site. The word blog will not help you. Some people will not understand it or, worse, people with partial understanding of the phenomena will assimilate your project to some uninteresting resulting of the current media hype. Blogs can exist without being called blogs. Talk about a “discussion based intranet”, or an “interactive project portal” (our case).

Then you will have fun someday when a colleague willl come to you and say “you should have done a blog mate… Know what that is?”

More on this matter:
Lesson 3: With (internal) blogs you have a second chance.
Lesson 2: The audience is ready. Editors are not
Lesson 1: Content will make the difference