Internal blogging at Microsoft

Alex Barnett compiled a great set of links about internal corporate blogs, keying off the news that IBM has some 3600 active (note to self – wow). He also touches on the question of Microsoft internal blogs, and why they haven’t caught on more.

Damn good question. It’s well known we have one of the most supportive cultures in the industry around corporate blogging – execs get it, and our legal, PR and HR teams by and large have been incredibly supportive. 1300+ (and growing) employees actively blog, and many times that read them through RSS aggregators (yes, even in marketing :)).

So with all that, why aren’t internal blogs a staple of inter-team and inter-division communications?. Yes, there are some very strong examples – in my worldwide org there is one senior manager who is leading by example with an open, straightforward and insightful blog about major issues in the division. I check it every day, without fail. But that is the exception rather than the norm.

(NOTE: I’ve started my own internal blog, as has my team, but in both cases we’ve let them atrophy due to shifting priorities. Just to clarify that I’m not being preachy here…I need to do my part as well)

Internal blogging has not caught fire the way external blogging has at Microsoft. It’s not a standard part of the corporate communications flow – email still rules. I’m sure the argument will be made that the answer is Sharepoint. Yes, our huge Sharepoint infrastructure adds real value for project and document collaboration, but without RSS much of that value gets lost, ignored, or forgotten (“alerts” just generate more email).

Part of it seems to be a lack of any “official” support or endorsement. Let’s get the internal blog tools set up as part of MS Web, hosted and managed by that group and discoverable as part of the internal search tools. Set up an internal version of a Technorati-like search portal. When you log on to the intranet home page, let’s get blogs as a top-level section, right up there with divisional portals.

Today the folks running the one internal blog site I know of do a great job with limited resources – but let’s get them real support and make internal blogging a staple of our corporate and team communications culture.

Here’s my internal communications wish list:

• Create a formal internal blog site and tools, integrated with MSWeb (like the effort around My Sites, but focused on blogging). Put real resources and headcount behind it, don’t rely on volunteers.
• Invest in tools for discoverability of internal blogs and RSS feeds (e.g. a Technorati of sorts)
• Encourage a culture of blogging for communications, to replace status email blasts. Let me just subscribe to your team/group/project blog if I want to keep up on what you’re doing. Break the culture of “cc for importance” and our focus on subscribing (or being subscribed) to vast amounts of email discussion lists or team/group aliases. Execs need to set this example.
• Enable RSS on every part of our Sharepoint portals and team sites – whatever it takes. Let’s look at how Basecamp uses RSS for project and document collaboration. Please make this happen.
• Set up some pre-canned internal OPMLs – role, division, and interest based. Say you’re a product manager – here’s an OPML with internal blog and SPS feeds of interest to your career development. Or you have a strong interest in the VS05 launch – here’s an OPML with feeds for the key launch news blog (note I didn’t say aliases…banish these), select managers or contributors, event and content update feeds, etc.
• Finally, heavily promote RSS aggregator use – go talk to Dare and get simple instructions on RSS Bandit, pre-load (private label in effect) it with those role/division based OPML’s, and drop it on MSWeb, with tech support set up. Make it a default part of the laptop OS images for new employees. Or go strike a deal with the Start folks, whatever works.