Those of you who were surprised by the recent buzz in the blogosphere about corporate executives who use ghost-bloggers must also think that President Bush writes his own speeches and delivers them without having his lines fed to him. But according to an international poll, 83% of senior corporate executives said that they did not write their own blogs without help.
Neville Hobson, Josh Hallett, and professional ghost blogger Steve Warren all blogged about it, asking “what’s wrong with ghost writing a blog?” The answer: nothing is really wrong with it - so long as you’re not outed. The blogosphere may then decide to eat you alive.
But just because 83% of corporate execs say they don’t write their blogs without help doesn’t mean that they’ve all got ghost bloggers cranking away. It just means that they’ve got silent collaborators. And really, what corporate effort doesn’t have silent collaborators? Steve Jobs onstage at MacWorld didn’t just come up with that wonderful Keynote presentation without any backup from his company’s communications team. Someone probably put together those speaking points for him. That presentation didn’t begin and end with Steve Jobs any more than Boeing’s commercial airplane division begins and ends with Randy Baseler. For everyone who gets the credit, there are people behind the scenes making the whole operation tick.
I’m not sure you can expect bloggers to understand that, though. But this is the real divide between the pundits and the business owners. There are a lot of pundits - who have never run a business - who think that blogging is somehow sacred in its supreme authenticity. And yes, authenticity is critical in the blogosphere. But I’m not sure it’s inauthentic to have help in writing a blog, particularly a corporate one. Just don’t let the pundits find out.
{ 10 comments… read them below or add one }
David Feller 01.11.06 at 2:48 pm
If you want to know the extent of Steve Job’s input in his Keynotes, read Michael Evangelist’s article in the UK The Guardian (http://technology.guardian.co.uk/weekly/story/0,16376,1677772,00.html)
Josh Hallett 01.11.06 at 3:39 pm
Quickly reading your post, somebody might get the impression that ghostwriting is something that I condone/support. I don’t. I’ve updated my original post to make this clear.
Teresa Valdez Klein 01.11.06 at 3:45 pm
Hi Josh,
Thanks for clarifying that. I shouldn’t have lumped you with your friend or with Neville.
I don’t really see anything wrong with it - but I do think that if the blogosphere catches on it could be a problem. I’d like to hear more about why you don’t think it’s a good idea, if you’d like to share.
-Teresa
Josh Hallett 01.11.06 at 6:13 pm
I’ll write up a follow-up post, but the biggest issue I see is that you would eventually get caught and that brings on a whole other set of PR issues.
Neville Hobson 01.12.06 at 2:05 pm
Good commentary, Teresa. This is a big topic. I’m thinking more about this especially as I read what others are saying.
Seems to me we have multiple thoughts in much of what I’m reading in other posts that diverge from the key original point, ie, with clear disclosure, I don’t see any problem at all with an organization having someone write a senior executive’s blog. That’s not saying it’s either a good or bad idea: different topic.
So there is no deception - no one gets outed, Josh - as long as there is clear disclosure.
steven streight aka vaspers the grate 01.12.06 at 2:29 pm
Then you don’t understand the 9 Core Values of Blogging.
A ghost blog lacks all nine. It lacks Authenticity, Passion, Credibility, Integrity, etc.
Why? Because people are sick of outsourcing and surrogates, voice mail option menus, and other impersonalized business practices. We want to talk to a real person who is who he claims to be.
Nobody I know wants to interact with, form a candid conversation with fictional character or a hired blog ghoster.
CEOs are by category a despised group. This just makes them look even more inept and retarded. Ha!
Don’t be a blog whore: just say no to ghost blogs.
We will destroy them all. I guaranteee it.
Teresa Valdez Klein 01.12.06 at 2:56 pm
Josh: I look forward to your follow-up post. Please ping me when you put it up so that I can have a look.
Neville: But what about senior executives that have help in writing their blogs? “Help” as the survey seems to have defined it could mean anything from having a professional web designer help you with the setup and HTML to having a ghostwriter. In your opinion, at what point does disclosure become necessary?
Vaspers: This is where the pundits and the business people diverge. Business communications will always have some degree of command and control to it. Businesses that grok the blogosphere have decreased that tendency immensely, but it will still always exist to a degree. Just because corporate blog marketing efforts are planned and executed by professional marketers doesn’t make the operation “whorish.”
-b- 01.12.06 at 5:09 pm
Do any of the pundits that don’t understand a ghost writer, or a corporate communications team for that matter, have to be concerned about, “forward looking statements?” This is where the cluetrain has left the station. That doesn’t meant a CEO can’t be candid in their blog or talk casually, but it’s naive to think other communicators aren’t involved. This great thread reminds me of that survey a while back about how many CEOs are blogging, not many and I bet more readers would want to hear about their company’s technology or product plans or how they make their products than discussions with CEOs. Really, wouldn’t you rather read Scoble than Bill G talking about how great Vista is …
Andy Havens 02.13.06 at 1:59 pm
You say, “I’m not sure you can expect bloggers to understand that, though.” According to some counts, there are as many as 20,000,000 blogs out there now, with as many as 6,000,000 active blogs — blogs that are updated at least once a month. And 1,000,000 blogs or so with content updated daily.
With tens-of-millions of people blogging, what is “a blogger” anymore? I personally know serious corporate bloggers, not-so-serious corporate bloggers, serious hobby bloggers, art bloggers, comedy bloggers, poetry bloggers, religious bloggers and personal philosophy bloggers. Is there one “definition” of blogger? Isn’t it somewhat narrow-minded to say, “This is what a good blog must be.” That sounds (ahem) very “mainstream media” to me. Very old school. Very Net 1.0.
I think “real” bloggers (i.e., bloggers who do it for a living) are in danger of becoming as staid and corrupted by their own ideas of “their” medium as they often accuse members of the traditional media. Ghost blogging breaks some “moral blogging covenant?” Bah. BAD blogging of any kind breaks a covenant, sure. There are “rules” about good vs. bad *anything* in every kind of communicative art. I’ve heard/seen terrible speeches and presentations written by CEOs themselves and thought, “Why didn’t they hire a guy to help them translate their good ideas into something palatable?” That’s the job of marketing and PR, after all.
For example, if “authenticity” is a rule of a great blog, what if your CEO is authentically a bad writer? He may be great at speaking, at runningn the company, at sales, at numbers, etc… but lousy at putting his ideas into print. OK. So if I listen to what he has to say for 15 minutes a day, transcribe it, edit it down, organize it and proof it and have him review a blog draft and hit the “post” button?
Or what if he doesn’t have time to look for good topics, but is good at writing once you give him an idea? Does that kill the authenticity?
There are degrees of good and bad in any medium. I think that if anyone found out exactly how little the President has to do with his own speechifying, they’d be appalled. Then again, maybe they’d be relieved. I don’t know. Same with many corporate communications. But if you assume that blogs have to be 100% researched, written, edited and published by one lone person… you’re totally living in 2004.
-b- 02.13.06 at 3:01 pm
Exactly. It’s where blogger pundits meet practicality of running a business or corporation. Corporations have whole teams of communicators, that’s what they do, so of course they’re going to all work on a blog, with one voice or not.