More than 12,000 blogs at IBM
In March 2005, I told you that there were 2,800 active blogs at IBM. Seven months later, a document published by IBM, “Blogging means Business,” and analyzed by Neville Hobson for WebProNews reveals that this number has been multiplied by four, even if the company doesn’t know the real number.
In this IBM document, two vice presidents of IBM give their opinions about the power of building communities in the marketplace, Willy Chiu (Vice President of High Performance On Demand Solutions) and Harriet Pearson (Vice President of Corporate Affairs and Chief Privacy Officer for IBM).
Here is what they say about the number of blogs written by IBM employees.
Harriet Pearson: “By last count we have about twelve to fourteen thousand active bloggers in IBM who are active from — can you believe it? — about seventy or seventy-three countries at the last moment.”
Willy Chiu: “We have an internal IBM blog facility that’s called Blog Central. We have over 12,000 users that, that post blog pages regularly.”
So, 12,000 or 14,000? This is not very important. What is more important is that these two VPs have understood how employee blogs could benefit the company.
Willy Chiu: “You immediately create credibility on the Internet with these blogs and the blog postings and the customers who reach out and look for those for content, identify who the experts are. And you begin to build this relationship.”
Harriet Pearson: “I think people are motivated to share their expertise and to share what they know. And I think if you can tap into people’s desire to share what they know and to be relevant and important, you can tap into a very powerful motivator.”
So what do you think? Will you follow the example of IBM and start blogs in your company?
