WSJ Article on Business Blogging Misses the Point like Jason Terry Missed His Three-Pointer Last Night

After reading the recent article about the business blogosphere in the Wall Street Journal (subscription only) today, I can’t help but feel like perhaps reporter William M. Bulkeley really don’t understand the blogosphere. The only thing he said that I really agree with is the necessity of a corporate blogging policy. Everything else just kind of rings hollow.

In his opening paragraph, Bulkeley writes:

Product marketers, software engineers and even a few top executives of major companies have started sharing their thoughts and advice in online journals known as blogs. But, as you’d expect, their offerings are far different from the political vitriol of the best-known bloggers or the stream-of-consciousness musings of teenage girls.

Maybe I’m nuts, but it seems to me like Bulkely doesn’t really read blogs. If he did, he would know that political vitriol and teenage girls’ musings are only two of the many topics that flow through the vibrant non-business blogosphere. And if he does have any understanding of the blogosphere beyond that stereotype, then he should have dispelled it from the get-go instead of using it as a crutch for the very cursory exploration of the corporate blogosphere that followed.

Yes, he pays lip service to Mark Cuban, Bob Lutz, and all the other usual suspects - but he doesn’t really talk about what blogs are doing for their companies. He doesn’t talk about the goodwill or the customer satisfaction. He pays more serious attention to the “corporate image specialists” who worry that a corporate blog might send out too many messages and muddy the waters.

The final four paragraphs of the article gave me a particularly bad case of stomach cramps:

Of course, allowing freedom of expression on workplace blogs can result in statements that may make managers cringe.

Birdie Jaworski, an Avon Products Inc. representative in rural Las Vegas, N.M., has developed one of the most popular blogs hosted at news Web site Salon.com. She has even heard from book publishers urging her to write a memoir. One reason for Ms. Jaworski’s popularity: her unvarnished reviews of Avon products, which she tries before peddling to customers.

Last fall, Ms. Jaworski wrote of an anti-aging cream: “I don’t know how I’m going to get through a two-week trial! This stuff is giving me whopper zits!!!!!” In February, she disclosed that she had stuck with the regimen and has found “my skin is softer and more even-toned than when I started,” although fine lines remain on her face.

Avon says it encourages its independent representatives to express themselves freely.

And…that’s it? No exploration of how Ms. Jaworski’s business as an Avon saleswoman might have benefitted from her honesty about the products she sells? No discussion of how Avon might be right to encourage its independent representatives to express their honest opinions about its products?

If this is what business people have to go on when it comes to making decisions about the blogosphere, it’s no wonder that so many of them are still baffled and frightened by the whole concept. Bulkeley is still listening to the PR “experts” who don’t really get the blogosphere either. What’s more, he has his head firmly stuck in the CEO box and there are a lot of people stuck in there with him.

Let’s unpack this a little bit. Companies: your CEO doesn’t have to blog. You don’t have to talk about what’s going on at headquarters every day. Most of your customers don’t even care about that stuff. There are much better ways of entering the blogosphere. Just look at what Wells Fargo is doing with its blog about preparing San Francisco for the next big earthquake. They’re engaging their customers while keeping the corporate messages perfectly clear.

I would be particularly surprised if Bulkeley even knew about the existence of blogs like that.