Weblogs in organizations and finding voice.

An interesting little piece in Business 2.0 about corporate use of weblogs

Business 2.0 – Web Article – Management by Blog?

Most of the companies I’ve observed using blogs are trying it on their customers before unleashing it internally on their staffs. The external need, apparently, is more pressing. Many businesses already have other systems in place for managing internal information, ranging from simple brown-bag lunches to overkill knowledge-management regimens.

I disagree that the external need is more pressing. I suspect that the truth is that the external weblog strategy presents less risk in the eyes of the implementer. Or to put it differently, internal weblog experiments feel risky…The chronological structure of short posts encourages and gently forces continuing practice…Helping weblogs to succeed inside organizations has little to do with technology features. It depends instead on nurturing a grassroots process of tentative practice evolving into confident process. Think Harold Hill in The Music Man not General George Patton in Patton [McGee’s Musings]

I agree with McGee. At least in our firm, blogs offer a way to move knowledge capture closer to the source–it’s a more organic approach to KM than our previous efforts. I do agree with the article author, though, that it really depends on the culture of the organization.