One might think that post title was directed at myself, but actually it’s not. I’m sorry to be too busy to update this blog more frequently, hopefully I will soon find the right routine.
Back to the title. I am wondering a lot these days why you don’t see more CEOs or political leaders blogging, the standard answer from most of them seems to be that they are too busy. As I said above, I think it’s about routines and prioritization. Especially for political leaders, the blog should be equally important as tv interviews or photoshoots for magazines.
I was pretty annoyed to read in Weekendavisen (scroll to page 3) this weekend, that Naser Khader (leader of new danish party New Alliance) spent a few hours on a photoshoot for some small magazine, this is while he still haven’t blogged a single word! This guy talks and talks about revolutionizing the danish tax system, our foreign policy and a lot more, but haven’t really opened up a dialogue on the subject yet. One might begin to believe that Naser is afraid of criticism. His NA-colleague Lars Kolind is not though, we just helped him relaunch his blog this morning. Will be interesting to follow.
I have now asked a few CEOs why they don’t blog and some actually gave some chocking answers. One told me that he was afraid to run out of material, that after blogging for - say - 14 days, he wouldn’t know what to write. Erh, that really struck me. One can be the leader of 5000 people and not have anything, even remotely, interesting to say? Then I think the problem is a lot bigger than not blogging.
Seriously, CEOs and political leaders of Europe, do you have nothing to say? Or is it really because you are all afraid to open up the decision-making process just one tiny bit?
(PS: I thought we lived in a world where leadership and facilitation reign, not a Henry-Ford-illusionary world where control and closed silos are in place.)
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Spot on, Jacob, striking example. We are in really bad shape if leaders can’t generate visionary and thoughtful/-provoking statements, at least on a weekly basis. I’m however wondering if blogging is the right media for leaders to engage in, given as you point out time and effort required (even though you could argue that it is time well spend).
You are also absolutely right when you say blogging is not any political leaders or CEO’s biggest problem, just as blogging isn’t the cure - it really isn’t. Blogging is one symptom that calls our attention to that central communicative and organizational changes are happing around the organization. blogging can be a tool to leverage communication with in the organization. But the real challenge is to make the organizations adapt to these changes or at least be aware of this. Leaders and politicians are often highly trained or specifically talented in having “dialogs” where they end up saying the must, and the traditional media channel systems supports that well.
28.08.07 (d.m.y) at 11:11 am (CET) | MartinSo actually the must sad part isn’t that they don’t have anything to say, but that they think, they don’t have anything to ask other people. isn’t it?
Though we shouldn’t get hung up on tools (i.e., blogging) - it’s a means to an end - I share the wish for a more transparent world, and though you could imagine CEO’s being somewhat hesitant, you’d imagine for a politician it’s his bread-and-butter…
One thing that made me curious though - when you say you helped relaunch Lars Kolind’s blog, what does the help encompass? Getting a blog to work is truly multidisciplinary (like any content management project is - or should be), do you have a particular focus or do you really work on all aspects? Tech, usability, design, but more importantly: communication (messaging), transparency and blatent honesty, train the blogger to really get into the interaction? And last but not least: the all-important routine of actually using the blog, instead of letting it wither into obscurity…
Somewhat off-topic, I know, but when I wonder about something, I tend to just ask the question ;)
02.09.07 (d.m.y) at 12:40 pm (CET) | Adriaan BloemSeth Godin gave good reasons why CEOs sometimes should not blog 3 years ago: http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2004/10/beware_the_ceo_.html
05.09.07 (d.m.y) at 9:32 pm (CET) | Claus