Crazy dilemmas at the workdesk.
Many years ago I was offered a strange job at a strange place very seldom offered to people like me (with my skin colour, and the kind of things that grow out of my body *or rather, not grow out of my body, and the number of years I had spent alive in this world), and one of the reasons I got that job was because of the way I had manipulated my way around this strange little place called the blogosphere.
*Yes OMIGOD it's been over TWO YEARS and now I've entered the strange new era that suddenly, bloggers are becoming increasingly mainstream, and then politicians are blogging (even Khir Toyo that lelaki berbangsa Jawa yang berkulit cerah, dan dikatakan berlagak hansem, is blogging).
So we were pondering for the weeks after the elections (it's bad times here my friends, new politicians want to make their mark, so we have things like the Rawang transmission towers kena forced to reroute, and the coal fired power plant in Silam kena slashed) whether the company should actually do an official entry into the blogging world.
This is where we are now: Where I work, bloggers are our friends. We are good friends with bloggers. We network with bloggers, we sponsor blogger get together events… and we sometimes take one or two bloggers on our media press tours visit.
But suddenly we're discussing a move to create some sort of site where our customers (we have 7.1 million customers as of 31 August 2007 - dates based on our financial year calculations) can come in, read on an issue that is related to the company and the industry, and allow discussion where people who're interested in giving an opinion can do so and let the opinions flow for a day or so… Then after the few days of open commenting session we will close the discussion and study the flow of comments…
As it… right now that is in discussion lah and we're wondering whether to do it or not, and I'm sitting in the meetings, actually I'm sometimes steering the meetings and moving it in a direction towards saying its a yes-go.
And all the time realizing that, yes-go means we're implementing something of a blog. Which is not called a blog.
…
MINISHORTS IS STUCK! I AM STUCK. Sheesh… You see I like to separate my life from my blogging persona can? And there IS A freaking reason why I don't blog so often anymore, because my life takes a whole lot of internet time away from me…
And now suddenly this whole thing gets merged together and I'm wondering… alamak how now how now?
…
The question is, is an online discussion space (with published posts fr our office for discussion) good for a company as hard as ours?
Chants crazy mantra: no one knows where I work, no one knows where I work…
April 9th, 2008 at 11:20 pm
Whether it’s a good idea, depends on the commitment of top management to read the comments and provide answers/responses….otherwise it would just be another bulletin board, or an empty “suggestion box” you see in most offices….but isn’t it wonderful to be the pioneer in the field and succeed?
April 10th, 2008 at 9:22 am
My experience with government departments is:
It doesn’t matter. God himself could post the meaning of existence in the comments and it wouldn’t matter because in the end it’s what some politician decides is what counts.
April 10th, 2008 at 10:49 am
It depends on one thing: Is your company actually going to LISTEN to the comments and take them into account when crafting policies? If not, then it’s just wasted time and money.
April 10th, 2008 at 11:05 am
Can. opening.
worms. squirming.
overflowing. all over the table. on to the floor.
will the company have the stomach for it?
therein lies the answer, methinks.
April 10th, 2008 at 7:29 pm
If you don’t moderate comments, you lose.
If you moderate comments, you lose even more.
You can’t win this game, so don’t even bother trying. Look up there and you see people asking your company to LISTEN to comments.
SIAO! Imagine that! A multi-billion dollar corperation taking suggestions from the random unread bloke on the street…!!
April 11th, 2008 at 3:45 am
TNB? becarefull of disclosing market sensitive info…
later get blamed like repco low
April 11th, 2008 at 3:30 pm
It’s a good idea. Even if it allows any unread, Tom Dick and Harry to comment, at least it opens a window into their minds which the company can then strategize its campaigns and responses.
It’s the company’s official-unofficial blog so go ahead and post away. The process of democratization of opinions will ensure quite lively exchange of ideas, so may the better idea “win”