Corporate blogging: stifling the individual

Stowe Boyd writes an apocalyptic piece about corporate blogging and the stifling of the individual voice.

"...more companies asserting that their employees must drop any hope of personal opinion or risk the loss of their livelihood..."

There can be no doubt that Robert Scoble has single-handedly softened perceptions of Microsoft. And, in the early days, that was terrific for him and for the company.

But I wonder if the phrases "outlived his usefulness" and "rogue elephant" are in the minds of the Microsoft board.

Robert has acquired significant personal power. A 'wrong' word now can have a serious impact on his employer or on anyone else he sets his sights on.

Such is Scoble's power just now that Microsoft would have to be extremely careful how it handles him. He is spending lots of time travelling and glad-handing and being the star of 'geek dinners' (ugh!) Perhaps this is Microsoft's way of "letting him go" - encourage the guy to build such a huge personal brand, that he will decide that "outside" is better than "inside".

Problem solved.

Updates:

Shel Israel (Robert Scoble's pal and co-author) posts a response

Robert Scoble posts a response

Comments

[City Hippy]

Love it...very primal...the move from symbiotic to parasitic he he he

[Dennis Howlett]

How else would MSFT execs keep remotely in touch with the innards of the company without El Scoble? But seriously - at least he keeps Mini-Microsoft's voice out the limelight.

At the same time, I'm not sure Robert's influence is really that great outside a few hundred (maybe 000) people.

That might change when and if he ever hits the FT/DT/Guardian in anything other than a casual mention.

[Robert Scoble]

Dennis: I've had whole articles in both the Guardian and FT and the Economist and Fortune and many many other newspapers and magazines.

[David Tebbutt]

Hohoho. Ding. Seconds out...

[Dennis Howlett]

Good for you Robert. I'll bear that in mind when looking at the Chinese sections