New Media in the Enterprise

Would you trust your newest employee to represent your company, interact with the media, even chat informally with your biggest customers? If your newest employee is young, hip, technologically literate and comfortable communicating over blogs, message boards or social networking sites, it may be happening already. IT groups need to step up and get a handle on these and other new communication mechanisms ... before statements made there come back and bite your company's bottom line.

We're not saying to put a lid on. This genie is out of the bottle, and imposing a Draconian usage policy will do more harm than good. Disseminating your company's message solely using print and TV ads limits your audience. By 2008, 80 percent of Global 1,000 companies will have experimented with new-media concepts, but fewer than 20 percent will have successfully adopted a wide range of these technologies, according to Gartner. That's unfortunate: Try to find a college student who doesn't use MySpace or FaceBook. This is a golden opportunity for smart IT groups to help their companies beat the pack.

Take The LeadThe organic growth of new media reminds us of how PDAs and IM came into the enterprise--from the bottom up. IT can show leadership in education and policy building, security and content filtering, and knowledge management to help harness the ideas housed in nonconventional media like blogs and Wikis.

IT groups are well-equipped to make recommendations on what level of new media usage is acceptable, because they're likely longtime consumers: Our poll for this article garnered responses from 699 readers, nearly half from companies with revenue between $100 million and $1 billion. Fully 70 percent read tech blogs, while 40 percent listen to tech podcasts and 51 percent read wikis.

In addition, tech companies blazed the trail for new media. Jeff Sandquist, a leading Microsoft blogger, reminded us that Microsoft engineers were engaging in dialog with customers and partners through CompuServe forums and Usenet groups a decade ago. Sure, we all got a chuckle over the Microsoft contractor fired for posting on his blog photos of Apple G5s being unloaded at the Redmond campus. But that was an isolated incident; there are more than 3,000 MSDN bloggers today, yet Sandquist says there is no approval process for blog posts.

Sandquist runs Channel 9, a video blogging site aimed at Microsoft developers; the name comes from United Airlines' audio Channel 9, where passengers can listen to the pilot's communication channel.

"When a [software release] schedule changes, that's like the plane rearing right really quickly. If we're not transparent and open with them about where we're heading, they're like 600 people in a tube going hundreds of miles of hour, and we have their livelihood," says Sandquist, explaining Channel 9. "The ultimate dream is, listen to the cockpit and help us fly the plane."What is that goodwill worth to Redmond? Quite a lot it seems. Channel 9 had about 3.5 million unique visitors in June.

The takeaway? Hallmarks of new media are democracy and transparency: Is your corporate culture such that employees at different levels could have a frank discussion about a controversial new product on an internal message board without fear of reprisal? Could an engineer freely discuss a known product issue with a customer on an outward-facing help forum?

The success of any new-media initiative depends on building communities of producers and consumers. To generate producers, employees must feel safe stepping up and speaking up. IT should work with the business side to understand your company's level of openness and build appropriate policies for inward- and outward-facing communications.

Ground Rules

We were shocked to see that 85 percent of respondents to our reader poll said their companies' policies don't cover blogging. A statement an employee makes could expose your company to bad press, even a defamation lawsuit, so corporate council, HR and business leaders should help build a policy covering external and internal communications. This task isn't as daunting as you'd think: Your employee handbook probably forbids the discussion of financial information, unannounced products, pending litigation and so forth.

"We've always had a set of company policies about what you're allowed to say," says Tim Bray, director of Web technologies at Sun Microsystems and one of the architects of Sun's blog policy. "The only thing that's really qualitatively new is the permission to go ahead and say anything at all."

Sun publicly discloses its blog policy--which is well worth reading. "If you look at our policy, at least half of it is pointers on good blogging practice and how to succeed doing it," Bray says. IBM also posts its policy. IBM developed its blog policy by first soliciting employee input through an internal wiki.

In our reader poll for this article, of the 170 respondents who said they do have personal blogs, about one in four said they discuss work. Although the First Amendment generally protects that right, most employers also have the right to send bloggers to the unemployment line for public or private comments. And a number of employers have shown a willingness to do just that: Microsoft, Delta Airlines, a U.S. senator, Friendster and Google have all fired employees over postings made on personal blogs.

Lawsuits over these firings have generally favored the employer. Still, crafting a policy on personal blogging just makes sense: Fired bloggers have a tendency to generate headlines.Public Relations

News travels fast: A single post on one lowly blog can be syndicated on hundreds and thousands of other sites, even picked up by social bookmarking sites like Digg. The blogosphere won't contact your public or media relations department before slamming your company.

"There's a culture of 'ready, fire, aim' in the blogosphere that doesn't exist in the traditional media," says Sam Whitmore, an expert on tech media relations. "I think PR people have to be emergency responders and basically out-communicate, both in number of posts and richness of posts, whatever the counter-message is."

IT can help PR pros stay on top of what's being said about your company, but it's a daunting task: Technorati, a blog search engine, claims more than 1.6 million new blog posts come online every day. Offer training to PR departments on how to use Internet search engines and Boolean operations effectively.

Technorati and Google can create RSS feeds based on search queries. RSS is a Web feed, or syndication, file format written in XML that enables automated delivery of data to other Web sites or end-user feed aggregators. Typically used for news headlines, RSS can deliver any compartmentalized data, including file-change logs, new pages in a wiki and blog posts. Alternately, you could develop an internal Web site that will track, archive and aggregate multiple feeds into Web pages. Myst Blogsite and Umbria offer services and software to track the blogosphere.We Built It, So Where Are They?

Q: Who'd have predicted that a poorly produced video of a goofy guy dancing would get a few billion hits?

A: No one, which illustrates both the beauty and the pain of new media.

A tiny company with a cool presentation could be the next new-media darling, if it follows some rules. First, content must be easy to find and bookmark by the casual Web surfer. Some organizations place links from their home pages to the corporate blog site. Make it easy to hyperlink to individual blog entries. Publish RSS feeds, and use standard image tags to denote them. Users should have no trouble finding podcast feeds and direct file links. If you allow feedback, comment spam will be a huge hassle and will drive away readers, so consider moderated posts or use an anti-bot verification mechanism.

Message boards have unique technological challenges. There's a higher level visibility, and there must be a balance to the number of board topics: Not enough, and messages become lost under hundred of threads. Too many, and the place feels deserted. Consider letting users view messages without registering.Stop That Data!

Blocking confidential or embarrassing data from being leaked onto message boards from your network or posted on external-facing blogs housed on servers under your control is possible using content monitoring and filtering products. This market is taking off--jumping from between $20 million and $25 million in 2005 to as much as $40 million to $60 million this year, according to Gartner. Products from Tablus, Vericept, Vontu and others let IT discover potentially confidential content within the organization, such as posting of Social Security numbers. Tablus actually hosts a monthly podcast on its site.

Problem is, content inspection products work best on structured data, not subjective opinions. They can't determine if a post about senior management is negative, or if a person is talking about future projects without revealing specifics or code names. That's where a policy comes in.

Despite the "everyone can read, everyone can play" attitude of new media, access-control mechanisms should be deployed for blogs and wikis meant for internal use. In our review of enterprise wiki software, we examined authentication, access granularity and role-based rights management. We weren't completely thrilled with the security features on any of the four offerings tested, but Atlassian Software Systems' Confluence, our top pick, did impress us with the granularity of its access rights. wikis and blogs can authenticate against an LDAP directory, and you can set the wiki to not reveal any content unless a user has authenticated. The IT department must educate skunk works blog and wiki admins about security issues, and assist with directory integration.

Capture Those Smarts!New media also can open up channels of communication across levels and departments. A number of high-profile executives, including Microsoft's Ray Ozzie, maintain blogs, for example, and it's easy for employees to keep tabs on team members through project blogs. Wikis let employees share data, documentation and best practices.

All this raises questions for organizations with knowledge- and/or content-management programs in place, however. Gartner predicts that by next year, most enterprise CMSs (content management systems) will support wiki and blog user interfaces; several--including Open Text and Stellent--offer wiki front ends to their repositories now. Wikis and blogs are being integrated into Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services, and IBM is offering the same through Lotus Notes. Apple currently bundles a blogging server with OS X Server, and a wiki is coming in the next version.

The Technology

Implementing new media is easy; scaling it is hard. Podcasts and video devour bandwidth, public blogs need to be responsive and reliable. Wikis and message boards can grow huge databases, which slow down searching. But just as users snuck rogue wireless access points in under their trenchcoats, the pervasiveness of high-quality, low-cost new-media applications are tempting users into circumventing IT. Users can start up blogs, podcasts, wikis and social bookmarks for free, and good luck blocking external use of these forums. Finding out if an employee is running a blog internally is easier, but you could spend a good bit of time on search-and-destroy missions.

A better plan: Be proactive. Set up a pilot program for end users enthusiastic about producing content; this will give IT control over the program. Issue standard audio/ video kits with cameras, microphones, audio recording devices, editing software, and copies of policies and guidelines to designated users in each department; these people can be given a training session and sent out as evangelists.If you want to outsource, Near-Time is a hosted provider of wikis, blogs and calendars targeting small and midsize businesses. Originally a content-management system of Mac OS X, the company has moved into a cross-platform hosted collaboration model. In our last evaluation, we gave it high marks for operational simplicity and liked its respectable feature set. Since our review, it has added a WYSIWYG editor.

Behind The Scenes

New-media support mainly involves monitoring bandwidth; setting up Web servers; and providing equipment, software and a reliable delivery mechanism. Integrating a blog, wiki or message board into your corporate Web site may require some development. Then, if all goes well, you'll face scalability and performance issues just like any other high-usage server administrator.

Podcasts up the ante and can eat up bandwidth fast: A half-hour show in 128-Kbps stereo MP3 format, a decent quality level, can be as large as 30 MB. If 100 people want to watch this as a daily show, you're looking at more than 3 GB of extra bandwidth. Video requires even more resources: A Mini-DV camera gobbles around 1 GB for every five minutes of footage, so plan ahead now for when new media takes off in your organization.

Yes, We Eat Our Own Dog FoodWe're producing a series of 15 podcasts that expand on the new media theme. These can be accessed by subscribing to our podcast feed at or through the NWC blog page, or right-click on the red links below to download.

The Toolkit

Blogging Software

Free: Blosxom plugs into Apache and ISS, but also requires Perl. It's preinstalled on Mac OS X Server. Roller, a Java-based OSS blog server, is part of the Apache Software Foundation incubator project. This software powers Sun's and IBM's blog servers and is designed to handle a large number of blogs. You'll need an SQL database installed. MySQL is supported.

Commercial: If you want seamless integration of a blog and your site, you'll need to turn to SixApart and its Movable Type blog server, which supports enterprise databases, LDAP and integration with your content-management system. A hosted version is available for small businesses through a Yahoo partnership.Podcasting

Although the technology gets its name from Apple, that's about the extent of Apple's ownership. A podcast is an audio file, downloadable by HTTP, that is also encapsulated in an RSS feed. Some content-filtering engines will block MP3 and audio downloads. Desktop management and security products also have a tendency to report and alert on the detection of any audio file, a throwback to the download craze of the Napster days.

Listening to podcasts: The MP3 format is widely support but AAC (Advanced Audio Coder)-formatted podcasts require users to install Apple's QuickTime or iTunes software. We've seen little interest in the Ogg format for podcasts.

Creating podcasts: We like the open-source Audacity for recording and editing audio.

WikiSOur last wiki review examined hosted and appliance models. Atlassian, our Editor's Choice, provides a software-based wiki, while CustomerVision has both hosted and software offerings. JotSpot and Socialtext offer appliance and hosted models. All offer WYSIWYG editing, audit trails encryption and access control. We were disappointed the vendors' LDAP support, and see room for improvement and maturation.

Readerspeak: New Media

Wikipedia's visibility in popular culture has helped evangelize the wiki model, and niche wikis have helped bring this new format into mainstream acceptance. Not surprisingly, wiki readers vastly outnumber those who edit or modify: In our poll, 77 percent claim to have never modified a wiki; only 5 percent say they edit entries at least once a week.

Blogging is popular, with 18 percent reporting that they have a personal blog; only 9.5 percent have a corporate blog. Respondents said good blogs are authentic, credible, fresh, compelling and well-written. We also received many comments on what makes a poor blog, but the overall consensus is that people tend to be too blunt and tactless when posting messages.

This is a valid concern for enterprises: Employees who blog on corporate sites are a reflection of your organization. Unfortunately, most respondents don't have a well-defined policy for blogging. The number of readers who said they are expected to write positive comments about their companies on the corporate blog was double that of those who are free to be open. This is where policy and practice meet: A successful public blogging initiative cannot be just marketing rehash. Users must have the freedom to be critical, so that they can build community trust and get legitimate feedback from their readers. If a blogger writes "We know this feature isn't great, what would you like us to improve?," you've turned all the blog followers into ideal beta testers.Overall, 19 percent of those who've implemented blogs, podcasts, wikis or community-based Web sites did so with success. Of those who do not use new media, some cited the technical ability of users as the reason. One said: "The majority of tech-based employees can't even use e-mail effectively. I just don't see them comprehending, much less utilizing, a blog-, podcast- or wiki-based information exchange system."

We also saw a few references to permission: "I work for a huge company and cannot make these decisions without going through legal and God knows where else. It isn't worth it."

By all indications, Web syndication is something to consider. Fifty-five percent of readers said Web feeds and RSS will be very important in the future, with only 13 percent disagreeing. When it came to usage, 30 percent read RSS feeds regularly. Considering that Windows does not yet come with a default RSS reader, we consider that 30 percent a good portent.

Who Are You?

Should employees be able to post anonymously to internal message boards or blogs? Back in 2003 we profiled the U.S. Navy's then-new knowledge management portal, Navy Knowledge Online. We were struck by how hands-off naval leadership was in regulating posts. Enlisted personnel expressed their opinions freely, even voiced dissent using IM, discussion boards and scheduled chats ... but their names and ranks were displayed. Anonymity is a double-edged sword. On one hand, it grants a layer of freedom to the poster: True feelings and opinions can be conveyed without the risk of retaliation, embarrassment or loss of reputation. However, people tend to drop societal norms when they're anonymous, so we recommend limiting anonymity in forums where the company could be held accountable for harassment.

The Podfather If you're enthusiastic about new media's potential, consider mentoring like-minded IT and business-side employees. New media is really a bottom-up paradigm: For it to work, you can't dictate from the top.

The first step is to produce some quality content, to show new media's potential. Find a small group of peer leaders who care about and want to use new media at work, and let them go for it. Let the content grow organically. Start small, and as more people get on board, the rate of adoption will increase exponentially.

Encourage employees to promote their work, and invite in other co-workers. Suggest they place their blog URLs on business cards. Above all, be a consumer of the content yourself: Read employee blogs, post comments, make mention of topics discussed on their podcasts. Let the producer feel as if you're listening, reading and caring about the work.

You should also champion giving the employee time to post. This doesn't mean that blogging has to be considered a high priority item, but posting should be considered "real work."

You should also know when to pull the plug. Not all people are suitable to the medium: Poor writers will make poor bloggers; they may be better off podcasting, where they can get their ideas across without worrying about typos.Remind users that practice makes perfect: Listen to any podcast series, and you'll notice that the hosts become more comfortable and better over time.

Michael J. DeMaria is an associate technology editor based at Network Computing's Syracuse University's Real-World Labs®. Write to him at [email protected].

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