Weblogs and corporate governance.
Journalists were banned from today's annual meeting of Cone Mills. I got in as a shareholder and family member, and dissident shareholder Marc Kozberg signed in other local journos including the N&R's Jim Schlosser, the Biz Journal's Doug Campbell, and WFDD's Larry Schooler.
But the real story is that companies can no longer control the flow of information from their annual meetings, because with weblogs every shareholder is a potential journalist.
Annual meetings are open to shareholders. Shareholders can now publish their notes immediately onto the Web. Any attempt by companies to limit this posting seems likely to fail.
Employees, managers, and directors may be legally bound to keep some secrets. Weblogs will fray those legal ties, to be sure. But for shareholders, the ties are now broken. Information wants to be free, even corporate information, and weblogs will help free it.
[EdCone.com]
