Slides from a presentation I gave at Ark Group's KCUK 2008 conference about the benefits of internal blogging tools summarising our experiences over the past three years and in particular the twelve months since we created a centralised tool for the organisation's blogs

1. Corporate Blogging:
Can blogging save the world?
Richard Hare
26th June 2008

2. British American Tobacco at a glance
World’s most international tobacco group
 Business in 180 countries, over 300 brands
 Global market share approx.16%
 Market leadership in more than 50 countries
 Over 90,000 employees
Most recent performance
 £23.9 bn gross turnover
 £ 2.4 bn profit from operations
 £15.4 bn tax contribution
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3. Your Voice
British American Tobacco
BAT OVERALL 2006 (38719) vs. 2 BENCHMARKS
Category 2: Open Minded
Total
Unfavour-
Total Favourable Diff ? able
13. Little effort is made to get the opinions and A 51 10 39
thinking of employees in this company. (N)
B 47 4* 10 43 *
C 49 2* 14 * 37 *
17. It is safe to say what you think in this company. A 54 13 33
B 52 2* 13 34 *
C 63 -8 * 13 25 *
31a. This company has established a climate A 65 13 23
where: People can challenge our traditional
ways of doing things B 62 3* 13 25 *
C 66 -2 * 15 * 19 *
33. Differing opinions are openly discussed in A 75 7 18
reaching decisions in my work team.
B 74 1* 7 19 *
C 74 1* 10 * 16 *
0 25 50 75 100
(N) indicates 'Disagreeing' is the Favourable Response * indicates a statistically significant difference
Legend
A. BAT OVERALL 2006 (38719) C. ISR GLOBAL HIGH PERFORMANCE COMPANIES NORM (149193)
B. BAT OVERALL 2005 (35428)

4. 2004: “I want to try blogging”
Tom
(Change and Communications Manager,
Global Operations and I.T.)

5. From SiteBuilder…

6. …to BlogCentral

7. Guidelines set expectations

8. Creating your blog is simple

9. Posting to your blog is simple

10. Going Live

11. Loose Change: Tom’s Blog

12. GSD InC

13. Mixks World

14. The YouTube and Facebook debate

15. BlogCentral: the first 18 months
 425,512 pages viewed
 99,445 visits
 2873 comments
 1864 posts
 158 blogs created
 57 “active” blogs (1 post or more)
(Mid-August 2006 – February 2008)

16. Usage
BlogCentral Visitors: Monthly
3500 100.0%
90.0%
3000
80.0%
2500 70.0%
2000 60.0%
50.0%
1500 40.0%
1000 30.0%
20.0%
500
10.0%
0 0.0%
Unique Visitors New Visitors Repeat Visitors Repeat Rate (%)

17. Top Ten Blogs for 2007
View Percent Percen
Blog s Views Visits t Visits
3440 1191
GSD InC 7 14.8% 8 22.3%
1433
The Knowledge 1 6.2% 5143 9.6%
1043
Loose Change 5 4.5% 3170 5.9%
Mixks world 8849 3.8% 5182 9.7%
A catalogue of mistakes 8397 3.6% 5089 9.5%
Blogs from the Garden of
Innovation 7693 3.3% 3265 6.1%
BATSA IT Blog 7297 3.1% 4725 8.8%
Modernising BAT 6333 2.7% 2888 5.4%
Leadership In Action 5718 2.5% 1770 3.3%
GSD Blogcast 4091 1.8% 1835 3.4%

18. Top Ten Posts (to May 2008)
Title Views
Why BAT should let people dress how they want to by Simon H 7830
The internet email, Facebook and YouTube debate - what
happened next by Simon H 6667
Ten Habits of Incompetent Managers by Marcus A 4783
Wear a Helmet (Part two) by Michael G 2631
Why BAT must allow us to access internet email, Facebook and
YouTube from our PCs by Simon H 2463
Thank God by Tan Soon S 2249
Queuing Theory by Simon C 2145
A short fable about information by Thomas M 2100
Respectable Street by Simon C 1964
Lost by Simon C 1880

19. The Future: BlogCentral 2008

20. The Future: Interact 2008

21. Blogging Summary
 A visionary – Tom kept pushing us
 A tool – not a central initiative
 Guidelines – let writers know what is expected
 Usability – simplify to remove barriers
 Encourage your writers
 Prototype – get feedback
 Become a user yourself

22. Questions / discussion
E-mail: richard_hare@bat.com
richard@flareconsulting.com
Phone: 07747 708119
Web: http://www.richardhare.com