IBM does a great job supporting employees who have personal blogs. While other vendors might try to police what employees and/or partners say publicly (or just shut them down completely), IBM actively helps internal bloggers.
BlogCentral, an internal IBM blogging site, started in 2003. Since then, IBM has put together formal guidelines for those individuals with personal web blogs that are easily accessible to the public. IBM acknowledges it is in the company’s best interest for employees to not only learn personally but to contribute to others’ learning. Basic advice to the IBM bloggers includes: be yourself, add value, don’t pick fights, and don’t forget your day job.
While investigating IBM’s blogging practices, I also came across an interesting research paper on IBM’s Blog Muse, a tools to help connect those looking for specific content with individuals who could provide it. See the document here.
See the IBM public blog site for more information.
