Enterprise Web 2.0 - 5 Good Reasons Not All CEOs Should Blog

It's like when you buy a car, suddenly you realize everyone else is driving the same brand. I've discovered some excellent Social Networking sites. Until (if) I find some time to put some original thoughts together, I'll agregate some of the best of what I see out there -Bryan

Enterprise Web 2.0 - 5 Good Reasons Not All CEOs Should Blog: "For those CEOs who are inclined to pass on the joy of blogging but aren't quite sure why, let me give you five good reasons why your instincts may just be right.
1. The same reason most CEOs don't do their own televison commercials. You may be lousy at it. Writing is a form of public performance and unless you're a natural like Jonathan Schwartz you might embarass yourself and your company.

2. It's time consuming. It took me about an hour and half to research and write this post and I've written for a living for the past 40 years. Unless you can spare (and commit to) the 3 to 4 hours a week it will take you to write a couple of decent posts, don't do it. You'll wind up with a nearly deserted blog like Whole Foods president John Mackey's, which was last updated more than a month ago.

3. The reasons your legal department has flagged: running afoul of safe harbor requirements, intellectual-property issues, possible defamation claims, unhappy employees or customers chasing common-law tort actions for who knows what reasons. Sure, the lawyers are overly-cautious assholes; but sometimes they're right.

4. Blogs are so last year. Blogs can be valuable marketing and public relations tools and most companies should be able to find ways to use them effectively. But, the whole CEO blog thing has been over-hyped and may not age well. (All the cool guys will be doing video blogs next year.)

5. The foot-in-mouth syndrome. Are you really going to provide 'vital' information to investors (or anybody else) in your blog. Are you going to discuss new products that are in the works that your competitors don't know about, companies you may be eyeing for acquisition, talks you're having about being acquired, the suspicion that you may not make the numbers next quarter). As the 'primary' source of this “vital” information to investors (to use Professor Stross’ construct) are you really going to use your public blog as the key method of sharing what you know. If you are, please give me a chance to see if I own any stock in your company so I can sell it before you start blogging.