Whenever long periods of time go by between posts on blogs which I regularly read, I wonder what’s behind the silence. Is the blogger overworked, overtired, waylaid, apathetic or ill? In my case, I needed to step back from this blog when the number of people and tasks facing me combined with a cold/sinus infection that decreased my stamina.

The result: cobwebs on the blog.

This probably has some well-known, prolific bloggers laughing. You know, the guys who Twitter that they’re blogging about a new social media report while recording a podcast about their new wiki that is changing the face of public relations as we know it. But many of those types (at least the ones I’m picturing) are consultants who:

• Use social media to advance their practice, by enhancing their reputation and reach, and by becoming known as “gurus” in their field,
• Are constantly traveling, where the long flights, delays and stays in hotels provide time for blog posts and tweets, and/or
• Are young and unattached, giving them fuller control over their schedules and priorities.

I started blogging and podcasting to get experience with these tools and techniques so that I could make informed recommendations when discussing social media with management at my employer. Don’t get me wrong: If, along the way, I had the opportunity to launch my own consultancy that provided endless professional opportunities, along with bags of cash, I’m sure that, today, I would be one of those consultants described above. I’m not knocking consultants. The fact is, many communications consultants have, directly or indirectly, taught me a lot about social media–and I remain grateful to them all.

My point is that when you look “behind the scenes” in many organizations, the reasons why so many employees are NOT blogging, podcasting or tweeting include the fact that we ARE NOT CONSULTANTS.

If my company hired a consultant to provide guidance on the possible introduction of social media within the company, management and staff would expect the consultant to tactfully, but accurately, present the facts regarding the value of social media tools and techniques–and the opportunities that would exist within the company for employing those tools and techniques.

But I’d love to hear from any internal communicators who have experienced something like this next scenario: You spend a lot of time developing a strategy for introducing social media tools and techniques within your organization–only to get pooh-poohed or outright denied the chance to make your case.

A second difference between consultants and in-house employees: free speech. Some of the most interesting blog posts that I’ve read have been written by consultants who start with the phrase, “At a company where I worked (or consulted)…” In the case of an internal communicator, every post that mentions the company has the potential to bring heat upon the author–up to and including termination. In my case, why would I jeopardize my job to write a post about a struggle that I might be having with management over social media tools or policies? The people in the trenches have a great position to gather “real-world” tales of trials and errors. But many of those tales never make it onto a blog.

So some of my silence has been caused by my decision to keep some things in my life “behind the scenes.” But that won’t stop me from writing about the rest!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 2nd, 2007 at 9:41 pm and is filed under General, Uncategorized, blogging, communications, podcasts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.