I have been looking at the reasons that corporations are looking into internal blogs and I have been wondering if the line of thought holds up for "campaign". Should loose groups of organizers (decentralized) consider using a blog as a tool for internal and external communication and why?
And the Winning Pitch:
First, think about the value of the Wall Street Journal to business leaders. The value it provides is context — the Journal allows readers to see themselves in the context of the financial world each day, which enables more informed decision making.
With this in mind, think about your company as a microcosm of the financial world. Can your employees see themselves in the context of the whole company? Would more informed decisions be made if employees and leaders had access to internal news sources?
Weblogs serve this need. By making internal websites simple to update, weblogs allow individuals and teams to maintain online journals that chronicle projects inside the company. These professional journals make it easy to produce and access internal news, providing context to the company — context that can profoundly affect decision making. In this way, weblogs allow employees and leaders to make more informed decisions through increasing their awareness of internal news and events.
The quote is considered the "perfect pitch" on why companies should blog and the reasoning carries over to campaigns and advocacy efforts. However, the "perfect pitch" misses some key components for advocacy context.
In campaigns of loose groups of activists, coalition and networks there needs to be some essential glue that helps bond the group together. Strong social ties, common story, dense communications support and shared resources are just a few of those essential cohesion points that help build the networks ability to think and act collaboratively. Blogs (shared daily journals in first person) are one way to create a channel of communications that helps build the voice of a network (vs. a brand or mission drive).
Blogging makes it easy for companies to collaborate and communicate efficiently and effectively. It gives every individual within and outside an organization a voice to easily share thoughts, ideas, documents, and images on the web. The advantage is the capture, dissemination and management of a company's tacit knowledge and intellectual capital that is searchable and accessible from anywhere. The benefit of giving your constituents a voice is that they provide timely valuable input, build better relationships, become better references, and increase your profits. Blogging is THE future of how businesses will use information for profit and initiate the incremental steps of continuous improvement.
In many "battle" scenarios the advantage goes to the players with the highest situational awareness in a campaign. Listserves, conference calls and conferences are the traditional ways to build these. Blogs are new tools that are primarily designed for easy publishing and the format has evolved in a way where a dense set of cross linking blogs and accessing a feed can build situational awareness for the people working on the campaign and those that may join your effort in the future (persistent record)
Being organized is fundamental to managing difficult situations. It can mean the difference between success and disaster. With so many modes of communication, it's almost impossible to quickly notify your team and even more difficult for them to collaborate and decide on the right response. Success will depend on everyone coming together, accompanied by timely information, to stop escalation of the problem and control the situation.
blogs make it simple to quickly notify the entire team about a problem or opportunity. Besides putting everyone on alert, it automatically creates an online Situation Center where the team can share ideas, update status and make informed decisions.
Nonprofit Advocacy Blog Strategy
