IBM & Corporate Blogging Initiative!!

Tom Foremski writes about IBM’s plans to launch a massive corporate wide blogging initiative aimed at extending its expertise online. IBM plans to introduce – perhaps the largest corporate blogging initiative so far, in a bid to encourage all of its 320,000 staff to become more active in online tech communities. IBM has prepared a broad range of programs and online materials that staff can access to find out how they can start to blog. The move would help establish IBM's "thought leadership" in global IT markets. IBM employees will be guided on what is appropriate blogging content. IBM's position in key IT markets could benefit by having more of its tech gurus participating in online communities and discussion groups. Many companies have found that blogging can be extremely effective in evangelising their products and technologies and that this can reduce advertising and marketing costs—a very large line item for most companies. Such savings might offset future job cuts—the traditional way tech companies reduce their costs. IBM ‘s chief strategist, Irving Wladawsky-Berger, will lead IBM’ employees foray into blogging by publishing his own blog. He is credited with persuading IBM to become an early advocate for Linux, and to cultivate relationships with the open-source developer community. This resulted in a significant competitive advantage for IBM because it reduced software development costs, and the open-source movement became a thorn in the side of Microsoft, it's largest competitor. Interesting, though belated - this should trigger a cascading effect across enterprises, atleast in the tech and service sector..