Efimova, L. & Grudin, J. (2007). Crossing boundaries: A case study of employee blogging.
Proceedings of theFortieth Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS-40).
Los Alamitos: IEEE Press.Over ten weeks (July-September 2005) we browsedand read employee weblogs, followed weblog emaildistribution lists, attended meetings organized byothers to discuss weblog issues, read documentationcovering weblog guidelines and policies, andinterviewed 38 people in the organization, most inperson for an hour or more, some by phone. We hadaccess to data from internal surveys that coveredweblog awareness, attitudes, and behavior.We first interviewed employees who had supported,promoted, and authored weblogs, gathering relevanthistory and identifying significant groups and roles:active bloggers, infrastructure support (e.g., thosemanaging servers) and policy-makers (e.g., attorneys).These people suggested other interview candidates; yetothers we found by exploring employee weblogs andcontacting authors whose weblogs complementedthose in our sample. These included well-known andless well-known bloggers, employees in different rolesor located in different countries, those with diverseblogging styles (strictly work-related, mixing work andpersonal, product blogs, internal weblogs that could beclassified as project weblogs [18], and non-Englishweblogs). Table 1 provides an overview.
Table 1. Interview respondents
Total Male FemaleInfrastructureor policyBloggers 34 29 5 7Non-blogger 4 3 1 4Total 38 32 6 11
Semi-structured interview questions addressedhistory, perceptions of blogging in the organization,and personal practices emphasizing respondents’knowledge of or involvement in organization-wideblogging processes. Specific questions about events orblog content were based on insights gained fromreading their blogs. Over time some emphases shifted.For example, discovery of heavy product weblogactivity led to more exploration of that focus.Virtually everyone we approached agreed to beinterviewed and engaged enthusiastically with theresearch. This may partly reflect the verbal, discursivenature of blogging bloggers, but many of our questionsclearly aligned with their reflections about rapidlyevolving perceptions and behaviors around this newcommunication medium.
4. Results
Our primary focus in this paper is weblog authoringand the authors’ views of the readership. Afterdescribing the evolution of perceptions and policiesaround blogging, we present an overview of webloginfrastructure. Personal choices that shape blogging arediscussed, followed by an overview of work-relateduses of weblogs and their implications. Finally wefocus on product weblogs, an active form thatillustrates some of the issues and patterns we observed.
4.1. Evolving Perceptions and Policies
The first Microsoft bloggers were students withexternally hosted weblogs who were hired as interns oremployees, starting in 2000 and 2001. Their weblogsattracted little attention. By mid-2002 employees weremanually hosting weblogs on company machines andarguing for externally visible weblogs. An internalweblog server, maintained through voluntary efforts,hosted a few dozen weblogs by the end of the year.Late in 2002 a list of employee weblogs, includingsome hosted externally, was published by someoneoutside the organization (Mary Jo Foley in
Microsoft Watch
). This helped create a sense of a communityengaged in externally visible blogging. The attentionled to internal meetings and reflection.Internal servers are necessary for internally-facingweblogs accessible on an intranet, but not forexternally-facing weblogs, which can be hosted on anyserver. However, by dedicating servers to host externalweblogs, a company can facilitate, promote, andpossibly monitor activity. A successful grassroots pushby passionate employees for such servers gave rise toissues of ownership and appropriate behavior.By mid-2003, a server hosting externally visibleweblogs was operating. Because some managersperceived a benefit in using weblogs to communicatewith customers, this server had formal budget support.The wisdom of letting employees blog was activelydebated by those aware of these efforts. Early bloggersfelt that legal and public relations representativeswanted to shut them down. In an open internal paneldiscussion in June 2003, a legal representativebenignly encouraged bloggers uncertain about thewisdom of publishing particular content to seek guidance. Four months later, however, a contractorwas dismissed for what many considered a relativelyminor disclosure in a blog. Many in the weblogcommunity had made similar disclosures, so there wasgreat concern. The resulting discussions amongbloggers, human resources, legal, and public relationswere seen as producing healthy mutual education andclarification of policy.We interviewed two senior attorneys charged withconsidering weblog activity. They noted that long-standing policies covering email and newsgroupposting applied to weblogs. They recounted examplesof employees saying unwise things in public
Leave a Comment