IBM's corporate blog strategy is the topic of this excellent article, well worth the read for any company that's remotely open to innovative uses of technology.

IBM started a major initiative last May with three approaches, accomplishing three goals: corporate sponsored blogs on their products (thought leadership), internal employee blogs (internal communication), and a policy with encourages employees to blog publicly on any topic as long as they follow some common-sense guidelines (learning & growth). The reason why is summed up here:

Irving Wladawsky-Berger, IBM's vice president of technical strategy and innovation and the company's highest-ranking blogger, said Big Blue is encouraging employees to bone up on blogging for the same reason it asked them to get savvy about Web commerce in the 1990s.

"We absolutely recognize that blogging, just like the Internet, World Wide Web, Linux and open source, is a major initiative in the marketplace that we should be part of. This best way to be part of it is not to observe it passively but to do it actively," Wladawsky-Berger said.

IBM, like many companies, set up an internal blog capability to get comfortable with the new technology. The postings are evolving over time, from individual postings on personal topics to a company-wide collaboration tool.

Big Blue bit by the blogging bug By JULIE MORAN ALTERIO (THE JOURNAL NEWS, January 9, 2006)

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