Corporate Intranet Blogging

One of my coworkers recently came up with what I thought was a really good idea. He suggested that the company allocate time for us to blog. From a marketing standpoint, this could be good public relations in terms of finding both customers and employees, but from a business standpoint, there is a danger of compromising corporate intellectual property.

A lot of other companies have been successful with this idea, but our management is against the idea because of the fact that company secrets could inadvertently find their way into the hands of a competitor.

Therefore, my solution is corporate intranet blogging. We take the idea and we push forward with it, but only internally. This won't buy us any PR points, but it will provide everyone in the company with a platform where they can keep everyone up to date on any cool technologies, advice, bugs, or projects that they've worked on.

This would be a great extension of documentation. If I spend a few days fixing a nasty bug that I think someone else in the company may encounter, the fix will be documented in my intranet blog. If I know that coworker A has really good suggestions for user interface design, I can periodically review the blog for new advice. Sure, this may not be necessary when everyone works in the same office during the same hours, but suppose most employees work in another office? This is a great way to find out what everyone is working on without having to necessarily ask.