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Blogs or Flogs? Genre Conventions and Linguistic Practices in Corporate Web Logs Cornelius Puschmann University of Düsseldorf [email_address] Telematica Instituut 31 August 2007

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Contents of this presentation <ul><li>Research context </li></ul><ul><li>What's a corporate blog anyway? </li></ul><ul><li>Why do companies blog? </li></ul><ul><li>Three strategic approaches: conforming with, flouting or subverting conventions </li></ul><ul><li>Observations </li></ul>

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Research context

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The project <ul><li>Doctoral thesis project: </li></ul><ul><ul><li>The corporate blog as an emerging genre of computer-mediated </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>communication </li></ul></ul><ul><li>Focus </li></ul><ul><li>survey of a new form of domain-specific publishing </li></ul><ul><li>linguistic and extra-linguistic aspects </li></ul><ul><li>Questions </li></ul><ul><li>What functions do corporate blogs realize? </li></ul><ul><li>How do corporate blogs play with existing genre conventions? </li></ul>

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Data <ul><li>web feeds (RSS/Atom) are used to retrieve, store and analyze language data </li></ul><ul><li>automated part-of-speech annotation </li></ul><ul><li>161 English-language sources (133 corporate blogs, 18 personal, 1 political, 1 technical) </li></ul><ul><li>3 press editorial sections (New York Times, Washington Post, LA Times) </li></ul><ul><li>5 press release sections (Microsoft, GM, Sun, Oracle, McDonald's) </li></ul><ul><li>29,528 blog posts </li></ul><ul><li>7,821,317 words </li></ul>

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What's a corporate blog anyway?

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An example: GM FastLane

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A lot of different terms on the market <ul><li>“enterprise blogging” </li></ul><ul><li>“corporate blogging” </li></ul><ul><li>“business blogging” </li></ul><ul><li>“employee blogging” </li></ul><ul><li>“paid blogging” </li></ul><ul><li>... </li></ul>

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My pragmatic definition <ul><li>A blog written and maintained by the employees of a company that is </li></ul><ul><li>used to further organizational goals. </li></ul><ul><li>Blogs can fulfill intra- or extra-organizational functions </li></ul><ul><li>marketing </li></ul><ul><li>public relations </li></ul><ul><li>customer relations management </li></ul><ul><li>recruiting </li></ul><ul><li>knowledge management </li></ul><ul><li>communication </li></ul>

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Organizational and functional types of corporate blogs <ul><li>Five different types grouped according to authorship and function: </li></ul>

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Organizational and functional types of corporate blogs <ul><li>Five different types grouped according to authorship and function: </li></ul><ul><li>product blog </li></ul>

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Organizational and functional types of corporate blogs <ul><li>Five different types grouped according to authorship and function: </li></ul><ul><li>product blog, image blog </li></ul>

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Organizational and functional types of corporate blogs <ul><li>Five different types grouped according to authorship and function: </li></ul><ul><li>product blog, image blog , knowledge blog </li></ul>

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Organizational and functional types of corporate blogs <ul><li>Five different types grouped according to authorship and function: </li></ul><ul><li>product blog, image blog , knowledge blog , strategy blog </li></ul>

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Organizational and functional types of corporate blogs <ul><li>Five different types grouped according to authorship and function: </li></ul><ul><li>product blog, image blog , knowledge blog , strategy blog , multi-purpose blog </li></ul>

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Corporate blogging ethics? <ul><li>Robert Scoble's Corporate Weblog Manifesto (2003) </li></ul><ul><li>http://scoble.weblogs.com/2003/02/26.html </li></ul><ul><li>#1 Tell the truth </li></ul><ul><li>#2 Post fast on good news or bad </li></ul><ul><li>#3 Use a human voice </li></ul><ul><li>#5 Have a thick skin </li></ul><ul><li>#7 Talk to the grassroots first </li></ul><ul><li>#8 If you screw up, acknowledge it </li></ul><ul><li>#14 If you don't have the answers, say so </li></ul>code of conduct, “behavior beats bottom line”

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Companies that blog

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Why do companies blog?

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A communicative crisis? <ul><li>The Cluetrain Manifesto (1999) </li></ul><ul><li>http://www.cluetrain.com/ </li></ul><ul><li>#1 Markets are conversations. </li></ul><ul><li>#2 Markets consist of human beings, not demographic sectors. </li></ul><ul><li>#3 Conversations among human beings sound human. They are conducted in a human voice. </li></ul><ul><li>#4 Whether delivering information, opinions, perspectives, dissenting arguments or humorous asides, the human voice is typically open, natural, uncontrived. </li></ul><ul><li>#5 People recognize each other as such from the sound of this voice. </li></ul>

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A communicative crisis? <ul><li>The Cluetrain Manifesto (1999) </li></ul><ul><li>http://www.cluetrain.com/ </li></ul><ul><li>#1 Markets are conversations. </li></ul><ul><li>#2 Markets consist of human beings, not demographic sectors. </li></ul><ul><li>#3 Conversations among human beings sound human. They are conducted in a human voice. </li></ul><ul><li>#4 Whether delivering information, opinions, perspectives, dissenting arguments or humorous asides, the human voice is typically open, natural, uncontrived. </li></ul><ul><li>#5 People recognize each other as such from the sound of this voice. </li></ul>

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A communicative crisis? <ul><li>The Cluetrain Manifesto (1999) </li></ul><ul><li>http://www.cluetrain.com/ </li></ul><ul><li>#1 Markets are conversations. </li></ul><ul><li>#2 Markets consist of human beings, not demographic sectors. </li></ul><ul><li>#3 Conversations among human beings sound human. They are conducted in a human voice. </li></ul><ul><li>#4 Whether delivering information, opinions, perspectives, dissenting arguments or humorous asides, the human voice is typically open, natural, uncontrived. </li></ul><ul><li>#5 People recognize each other as such from the sound of this voice. </li></ul>

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A communicative crisis? <ul><li>The Cluetrain Manifesto (1999) </li></ul><ul><li>http://www.cluetrain.com/ </li></ul><ul><li>#1 Markets are conversations. </li></ul><ul><li>#2 Markets consist of human beings, not demographic sectors. </li></ul><ul><li>#3 Conversations among human beings sound human. They are conducted in a human voice. </li></ul><ul><li>#4 Whether delivering information, opinions, perspectives, dissenting arguments or humorous asides, the human voice is typically open, natural, uncontrived. </li></ul><ul><li>#5 People recognize each other as such from the sound of this voice. </li></ul>

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Communicating vs. Publishing spontaneous planned discursive monologic qualified constative publishing (written) interpersonal communication (spoken) transient persistent contextual non-contextual

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What's so special about blogs? <ul><li>blogs are the first truly personal publishing platform </li></ul><ul><li>blogs combine the qualities of publishing (one-to-many, asynchronous, no feedback) and interpersonal communication (one-one, synchronous, feedback) </li></ul><ul><li>they have “hard” technically conditioned conventions... </li></ul><ul><ul><li>segmentation of texts into posts </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>title, date and author with each post </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>reverse chronological order of items </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>permalinks ... </li></ul></ul><ul><li>... and “soft” communicative conventions </li></ul><ul><ul><li>first-person voice (“I think it is a good thing that X” vs. “It is a good thing that X”) </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>meta-language (“I just wanted to blog about this”) </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>interactional queues are usually literal (“What do you think?” means “Leave a comment!”) </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>author and publisher are usually identical (“I” means “I, writer”, “I, publisher” and “I, blog owner”) ... </li></ul></ul>

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Implications for corporate blogging <ul><li>people can communicate, companies can't </li></ul><ul><li>the “corporate voice” is an invention </li></ul><ul><li>press releases, advertisements etc either have no discernible referents or “simulate” conversations (“here at Company X, we are trying to make your life better”) </li></ul><ul><li>this worked fine in mass media (no feedback), but fails in feedback media such as blogs Since companies can't communicate, how can they blog? </li></ul>

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Three strategic approaches: conforming , flouting or subverting conventions

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Strategy #1: Conforming author is discernible

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The trouble with conforming <ul><li>“Spokesperson syndrome”: any time an employee expresses a (personal) opinion it can be interpreted as the official standpoint of the company </li></ul><ul><li>no more clear, carefully targeted messages </li></ul><ul><li>individuals take the spotlight, companies get the limelight </li></ul><ul><li>personal communicative goals can take priority over those of the company </li></ul><ul><li>Useful if... </li></ul><ul><li>a neutral, third-party view is needed to ease an image problem (Scoble) </li></ul><ul><li>behavior beats bottom line </li></ul>

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Strategy #2: Flouting instead, use of the “ corporate we”

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The trouble with flouting <ul><li>risk of being accused of “not getting it” </li></ul><ul><li>risk of being ignored </li></ul><ul><li>what function does this realize? </li></ul>

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Strategy #3: Subverting there's an author... but he's fictional

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The trouble with subverting <ul><li>if you get caught you're in deep trouble (Wal-Mart flog incident) </li></ul><ul><li>subverting is the strategy for pursuing covert goals </li></ul><ul><li>problem A: you are cheating, problem B: that you are cheating suggests that you have a hidden agenda </li></ul><ul><li>can you build real trust with fictional characters? </li></ul>

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E) Observations

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Observations <ul><li>blogs are profoundly personal platforms of communication </li></ul><ul><li>this means that organizations must individualize corporate relations if they want to utilize blogs </li></ul><ul><li>this is associated with a number of risks </li></ul><ul><li>traditional, control-based approaches to marketing and PR are least effective in the context of blogs, unless one resorts to flouting or subverting </li></ul><ul><li>new approaches are </li></ul><ul><ul><li>hard to predict in their precise effect </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>hard to replicate </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>highly dependent on the individual bloggers expertise, sensitivity etc </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>only effective in the long term </li></ul></ul>

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Thanks for listening!

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Blogs or Flogs? Exploring and Exploiting Genre Conventions and Linguistic Practices in Corporate Web Logs Cornelius Puschmann University of Düsseldorf [email_address] Telematica Instituut 31 August 2007