Financial & Economic Blog

The WSJ certainly has been busy this week talking about social networks and blogs. First there was an article on Twitter which I commented on yesterday. Then there was a great video by Jared Sandberg about Facebook. The topper was the fantastic story that broke yesterday and is all over the press today about the CEO of a certain food services company and his rather interesting practice of posting comments about his firm and his competitors in stock messages boards - anonymously.

Blogging is something that I feel senior managers should be doing regularly. It is a powerful tool to connect with their staff, their stakeholders, and their customers. When I started blogging I asked advise from some smart bloggers I know, and the advice was simple:

(1) Have a point of view, and be comfortable expressing it.  In other words, write about your passion passionately.  Thanks to Susan for her timely post on the subject.

(2) Remember that once you publish it is there forever. Be proud of what you write.

(3) Understand this - only if you are relevant will people actually care.  Don't be afraid to take the first step though...

What was never spoken about but was tacitly understood in this was that I would post USING MY OWN NAME. Don't put unsigned stuff out into the blogosphere!  Don't try to mislead the faithful reader.

Was I naive to think there would not be people trying to use Enterprise 2.0 collaboration tools for personal profits using unethical or at times illegal means? Of course not. People have been doing stupid things for all of recorded time. The benefit of these tools is that they are so public and collaborative in there nature that the risks someone like the poster rahodeb takes increases. Thanks rahodeb for reminding us to remember the simple rules around posting.