Why CEOs Shouldn’t Blog
Posted by Administrator on September 19th, 2005
By Dave Taylor, Intuitive Systems, Inc. | weblog: The Intuitive Life Business Blog
EDITORS’ CHOICE | CEO Blogs
To answer the question of whether CEOs should blog, let’s sweep aside the enthusiastic rants of the blog evangelists so we can consider the role of a corporation and the responsibilities of a company CEO. So as to not keep you in suspense, however, let me state up front that I believe the CEO of a company should not be spending her or his time blogging.
But let’s start with PR, since this article is for Global PR Week.
Public relations focuses on establishing a voice, a message, for a company and then assisting in disseminating that message to the marketplace and, specifically, to the market segment that encompasses both current and future customers. Within that mission, there are certain key, necessary assumptions made: companies can have a message, the message can be disseminated into the marketplace, and the constantly reinvented, evolving message within the marketplace can be managed and controlled.
Similarly, corporate executives have certain necessary roles and responsibilities. A Chief Financial Officer is ultimately responsible for corporate finances, for example, overseeing accounting, sales reporting, audits, tax filings, and SEC reports. A Chief Technology Officer is the uber-geek in the company, responsible for the foundational infrastructure that keeps almost all modern companies running efficiently on a day to day
basis.
And the Chief Executive Officer? Their primary role is to raise money for the company. They are the lead on strategic planning (along with the Board of Directors) and are somewhat involved in corporate tactics (though that’s really the purview of the President of the company), but notice that I didn’t say anything about “communicating the company message” or even “inspiring the employees” or “engaging customers”. For companies of any size, CEOs have more important tasks than writing articles for the company
weblog.
Where this gets fuzzy is that most people who are involved with blogging, and particularly business blogging and, yes, pr blogging, are used to working with small companies, firms where famously the CEO of a company is also the President, Chief Marketing Officer and QA department, among other roles. In an entrepreneurial setting, companies turn out to not have a CEO, in fact, and there’s something profoundly offputting about a startup whose head has accepted the title of CEO. Many of the most successful companies have brought on CEOs that don’t know the market or industry in which the company operates, but have valuable experience raising money, bringing a company public or growing a company to a certain size. Think Meg Whitman at eBay when she joined the auction company, or J.B. Holston who is CEO at blog company NewsGator.
I’m not saying that the entire executive team at a company should stay far, far away from the company blog. Quite the opposite! I applaud companies like Boeing and General Motors for becoming more accessible and gaining visibility in their marketplace by having executives contribute to their blogs. But neither firm has their CEO blogging, let alone a CEO blog. Frankly, their CEOs are just too darn busy with the challenges of running large companies.
There’s one more factor to consider when inviting executives, particularly a corporate CEO, to get involved with a company blog: the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Federal Trade Commission, among others, keep a very close eye on what executives at companies share with their investors and customers. Forward looking comments can lead to trouble, but disparaging a competitor in a parenthetical remark can burst into a major corporate wildfire without warning too, not because the remark might be extraordinary, but because it’s the CEO who is saying it.
And so, finally, while I like the idea of being able to learn about the strategic direction companies are taking by reading their blogs, one needs merely to glance at the pages of the Wall Street Journal, Business Week and the Financial Times to realize that for every CEO who gains any visibility, there are a thousand working quietly behind the scenes, ensuring the success and long-term viability of their companies.
I don’t want more so-called “CEO Blogs”, I want strategic business blogs that are written by authorities in the company. Let’s leave the CEOs to the job of running the business and encourage others on their team to help communicate the message and establish the face and personality of the corporation.
About the author
Dave Taylor has been involved with the Internet since 1980 and is widely recognized as an expert on both technical and business issues. He has been published over a thousand times, launched four Internet-related startup companies, has written nineteen business and technical books and holds both an MBA and MS Ed. Dave maintains three weblogs, The Intuitive Life Business Blog, focused on business and industry analysis, the eponymously named Ask Dave Taylor devoted to tech and business Q&A and The Attachment Parenting Blog, discussing topics of interest to parents. Dave is a top-rated speaker, sought after conference and workshop facilitator and frequent guest on radio and podcast programs.
{tags: prblogweek, pr, public+relations, CEO, blogs, CEO+blogs, business+blogging}
September 20th, 2005 at 2:22 pm
I once met the CEO of a Fortune 100 company who told me that the acronym stands for the wrong thing; it SHOULD stand for “Customers, Employees, Owners.” He said his primary job was representing the organization to these audiences. If he was good at that, investment, sales, and employee engagement would follow. And, just to make sure I understood what he was saying, he added, “That means communicating with these three audiences is the most important part of my job,” finishing off by noting that he had people reporting to him to handle the day-to-day, tactical work. In this context, blogging is just another means of communicating to be applied when it suits the audience and the message better than other channels.
September 20th, 2005 at 9:07 pm
I don’t think all CEOs should just stop blogging all together. I understand that some are really busy and involved with their company, but their are also those CEOs who do have the time to blog. I think when people look at a company’s website and they see that the CEO has blogged then that person feels more in touch with the company. If I were looking to get a job somewhere, I would want to apply to a company that did have the CEO blogging.
I think having the CEO in the public eye builds trust for the company as well as the customers. There has been so much distrust with CEO like Martha Stewart and Enron in the past few years that maybe it is good to have them blog. In years to come it may be necessary for a CEO to blog to help with sales and promotions. The public enjoys seeing prominent people in the spot light and blogging is just one more way to do that. Even though CEOs do have a lot of work to do, they can still make time for blogging.
September 22nd, 2005 at 3:46 am
The question isn’t whether CEOs should blog or not. The question that’s on the table here is whether the CEO and the executive team should lead and shape the culture, and I have no doubt that this is exactly their role. Senior leaders, after all, have exceptional people in the field locations who are actually making the money for the company — not the CEO. But the CEO can provide energy, direction and strategy to help employees feel engaged. And no matter how they do that — public speaking, e-mails or blogs — they need to find the best way to reach employees. Blogs allow both voices to be heard. I’m with Sarah — if I have a CEO who’s willing to state his opinion and then listen to me, I’ll follow her anywhere.
September 22nd, 2005 at 6:21 pm
I am going to have to agree with Shel here. Although you really made me think about this one with your argument, I am a firm believer in the CEO being about the vision and strategy of the company. They are the ones the customers, investors and employee base look to for vision.
So I think CEO’s should be active in blogging. There are plenty of good examples of CEO blogs that are great at building brand and show to me that a CEO is not just a temporary hire. No matter how far away we get from the Enron and Worldcom scandals, there is still distrust of the motives of CEOs. Seeing that a CEO has real opinions and actually cares about customers and employees, and not just about making themselves a nice fortune, I believe goes a long way towards building a positive image as well as showing knowledge of the market.
I do think that companies should not do this lightly though. And never have a CEO blog ghost written by a PR person. But in the end, I do believe these should be used.
September 22nd, 2005 at 7:32 pm
Dave,
You gave me some cause for thought with your article, and based on the excellent ideas expressed in the comments section here and Jeneane’s article, I ask if there is maybe a middle ground?
In my experience researching successful blogs it seems to me, who blogs, is one of the most important strategy decisions a company can make in setting up a blog.
Companies like Macromedia and Intuit are very successful with their blogs in part because their development and customer service staff blog, and not the CEO of the company. When I compare and contrast those companies and their blogging writer choices with General Motors, I think I see a middle ground. Bob Lutz a senior executive with GM is blogging on the GM FastLane Blog, but the blog has a few issues according to two customers I recently interviewed about GM.
To me the lesson from GM for companies is that to be able to successfully provide more of an outlet for customers you have to make sure you provide writers who can answer questions by providing bloggers from customer service and product development as well as show the passion and vision of the company through CEO and executive blogging.
John Cass
September 22nd, 2005 at 8:03 pm
The question of whether a CEO should blog is a complicated one. And there are lots of ways to look at it. From whether or not she has time (as Dave writes in his article) to whether the CEO can accomplish something useful with a blog, to whether or not… he or she can write. Yes, it’s ultimately about good writing… writing that is compelling and engaging. It’s true that podcasts are an intriguing alternative for the CEO or senior exec who prefers “to talk” vision, strategy and ideas. One notable example is HP Senior VP Nora Denzel who publishes a regular podcast rather than blogging. But I think the ability to write may be the defining criteria in the end. Note that Sun Microsystems’ CEO Scott McNealy does not blog. See this interview where McNealy describes himself as not literate enough. But Sun COO Jonathan Schwartz does.
September 23rd, 2005 at 5:03 pm
[…] Obviously, no one has told him that blogs don’t matter and VPs aren’t supposed to blog. As for Big Daddy, Generation Q and Shift Happens, I know those are names of scenerios, but I still haven’t had time to read them - have you? […]
September 26th, 2005 at 8:21 pm
I would agree that CEOs should not be spending time blogging but rather be focused on the company. I completely agree that its very dangerous with “forward looking comments.” As I was reading the article above that was my main concern throughout and I’m glad you touched on that subject. It seems anything these days is monitored so tightly and a comment coming from the know-all of a company may seem to the writer to not give away information, but to an outsider it could hold huge information. And in that thought, the CEO must be super careful of what is written and not written, taking up that much more time.
Also the trust issue, if I were to log onto a company’s site and find their CEO was not blogging, but yet their PR, marketing, business, etc. were blogging about the company I would be quite happy. I would not at all trust the company less because the CEOs comments were absent. I would just think how could she spend her time trying to keep up with the blogs while keeping the company running and “raising money for the company.” For me to keep up with all that goes on in the world of blogging its hard. I feel as though you miss a day you must spend twice as long trying to catch up, I’m not for being invested in or working for a company to have a CEO spending all her time doing just such.
September 28th, 2005 at 10:09 pm
[…] Und der Artikel, warum CEOs nicht bloggen sollten: Why CEOs Shouldn’t Blog […]
October 1st, 2005 at 9:03 pm
[…] Dave Taylor recently wrote an article about why CEO’s shouldn’t blog. As a CEO that does blog, I thought I’d share my comments: […]
October 1st, 2005 at 10:18 pm
I think the question of whether the CEO should blog or not is tied to the size of the company, and its stage of growth. Management guru Peter Drucker often states that the mission of any company is to get and keep customers, and that every employee’s endeavors can be measured against this mission. So for Fortune 1000’s who have already made it, growth has already occurred, and most employees are specialists, including the CEO. But as you travel down-stream, especially start-ups in emerging industries, you start encountering generalists and companies whose mantra is, those who can, should. And CEOs often have the most authoritative voice, and are likely to be listened-to more intently than some developer or tech-support person—especially in the investment and venture capital communities. By a CEO blogging, I believe they are very likely to increase their odds of achieving the Drucker mission of getting and keeping customers. In fact, it works on many levels: getting end-user customers through the search-hits and PR publicity it will create, plus getting the attention of investors and shareholders.
October 17th, 2005 at 8:11 pm
I agree that CEO’s shouldn’t blog, especially those who are chief executive of a public company.
CEOs are the personification of the companies they run and the stakeholders interests the company exists to benefit. The CEO is always in this role, whether speaking in the employee lunchroom, on an earnings call, at a trade show, milling around at a chamber cocktail party or through a blog.
Unless he or she tries to do so anonymously, a CEO who blogs does so as the official voice of the company. There’s no way around this. That means everything in the blog is commercial speech, open to interpretation and reaction by investors, unhappy employees and their families, class-action lawyers, competitors and other camp-followers with an agenda that may or may not have the company’s interests at heart.
Any well-written CEO blog will eventually create expectations and demand that the author tell it like it is on relevant stakeholder issues — the movement of the stock, analyst ratings, upcoming product launches, lawsuits, competing products, the guy fired for sexual harassment, trends in the market, rumors and gossip. Because few chief executives would open the company’s hood as a gathering place for the unaccountable masses, the CEO blog by design is destined to fade away or become yet another interactive marketing brochure.
In the post-Enron, Sarbanes-Oxley environment of tell-all-or-else corporate governance, the rank-and-file CEO crowd is unlikely to embrace the idea of creating more transparency than what they already struggle to comply with every day.
Steven Silvers