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Corporate Blogging: How To Be Open

September 2008 | Perma Link | Views: 1758
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By Nick Reynolds

I work for the BBC. Do you want to know how much I'm paid?

I'm not going to tell you. I've always considered my salary to be confidential information. My employer knows and I know. I want to have the right to choose who else knows.

I don't want to be forced to reveal my salary details to any Tom, Dick or Harriet. And if Jonathan Ross doesn't want to either, then that's fair enough by me.

But I do want the BBC to be more open. There are lots of things we could be open about, yet we seem to waste a lot of energy trying to keep them secret. Mark Thompson has said he wants the BBC to be more open, although as Director General he may find his job becomes more difficult when it actually happens.

To steal a quote from one of my bosses: "We're going to be more open. The question is how much?"

I go by the title of 'editor, BBC Internet blog'. The blog is an attempt to be more open about what happens in the BBC's Future Media & Technology division. To tell people more about what we do and try and answer their questions honestly.

It's easier to be open here than in other parts of the BBC because there's a tradition in technology companies of being open. You launch things in beta and ask people outside the organisation to come and fix them. You discuss chewy and (to a layman like myself) incomprehensible technical problems on blogs and message boards. You try and harness the 'wisdom of the crowd'. Sun Microsystems (a technology company from the US) has a policy that encourages their employees to talk about their work without asking permission first. The BBC has not got to that happy state yet.

But despite the fact that, compared to others, we're a bit behind the curve, here are a few tips which I have learned along the journey towards being more open. You may find them helpful if you are trying to do similar things in your organisation.

First, find out what's going on

This is hard work. You have to constantly have your antennae alert, picking up information where you can from whomever you can. It's like shovelling coal, and you have to keep digging everyday. Cultivate the people who like to share, and try to keep your temper with those who don't.

After nine months in the job, and people being generous with their time and information, I think I now have some idea of what might be about to happen. But, in a big organisation, projects are subject to human foible and sudden budget cuts and freezes. A new boss arrives, people move on. What seemed terribly important in February turns into what I call 'the project that wouldn't die'. Some projects can quietly disappear off the road map and never be seen again. So be flexible. Only God sees the whole picture.

Once you have gathered your information by fair means or foul, you'll find it falls into one of three categories:

Category One: Harmless, but still likely to make someone twitchy

Just the simple act of taking a photograph of a chart on a wall can cause tension. Is this confidential work in progress or just amusing or entertaining scribble? Just by taking a photo you open a window into the work place. You're taking a corporate space and turning it into a public one.

Part of this ‘twitchiness' is understandable. People like to speak in their own voice about their own stuff, rather than have it exposed by someone else. Suggest that they have a blog themselves. If they can't trust themselves to speak, who can they trust?

If they find their voice, they may find they just can't stop talking.

Now that the Internet blog has established itself, more blogs are coming on stream. The BBCi Labs blog from the people who make the BBC's red button services are really going for it, exposing as much detail as they can about their processes, projects and working methods. They just can't stop talking, and it's great.

Sometimes people get twitchy about information which is already in the public domain. 'We don't want to draw attention it' they'll say. To which the obvious answer is 'so why did we make it public in the first place?'. Gently remind them that once it's on the Internet, it's on the Internet and therefore public forever. Someone will find it if they really want to and ignoring it won't make it go away. The answer is always to talk more, talk quickly, talk calmly.

Category Two: True but embarrassing

Inevitably blogging and social media leads people to ask questions and reveal problems. Revealing there's a problem may help to get it solved more quickly. Do you want to put your energy into suppressing the information or solving the problem?

It's not comfortable having attention drawn to your mistakes. But, if you are honest about them and talk about them in the right way, then people will forgive you.

Recently, Andy Quested of the FM&T team wrote a long and very detailed blog post for me about a problem with sound on the BBC's high definition coverage of Eurovision SongContest.

The result? Lots of praise for Andy in comments including one that said 'this is the best blog post I have ever read on the Internet blog'.

Remember, Andy was talking about a mistake. And they loved him for it.

Category Three: True but, if revealed, would really damage your organisation.

Actually, there's not much information which falls into this category. Some of it is gossip. And while I like a good gossip as much as the next man, I do see part of my job as trying to be a good journalist. And a good journalist (or an ethical one) shouldn't reveal gossip without some proper evidence (and perhaps at least two reliable sources).

It helps that I worked for ten years as a very minor BBC bureaucrat in the heart of the BBC's corporate centre. I saw a few things, some of them not pleasant. But, as a result, I think I know the very few things which will really make the BBC's Charter and Agreement spontaneously combust. These are different from things which the world will neither understand nor care although they may cause a senior executive to spill his frappaccino.

The Internet blog is on http://www.bbc.co.uk and so, just like a story on the BBC News site, has to be impartial and accurate. Being impartial about the organisation you work for is difficult. But you have to try.

So to be more open, you need the diplomatic skills of a civil servant, the killer instinct of a spin doctor, the editorial integrity of a crusading journalist, the honesty of a priest and the commitment to openness of well... a blogger.

Because bloggers know that if you don't ask questions and you don't talk you don't get traffic. Once you start blogging you have to be open to be successful.

And if you keep doing it, one day you will find it all starts to become rather fun.

Nick Reynolds has worked in the following bits of the BBC over the past 19 years: BBC World Service, Editorial Policy, BBC Music Online, Audio & Music Interactive. He is currently editor, BBC Internet blog (http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/bbcinternet/)in the BBC's Future Media and Technology division.

His personal blog is Nick Reynolds At Work (http://nickreynoldsatwork.wordpress.com/)