Corporate Blogging

This article from Fast Company takes a look at how some companies are using blogs internally.

At Verizon, Paul Perry, a director in the company's eServices division, started a blog to keep up with news about competitors. Using a news aggregator, a popular blog-world tool that grabs and assembles syndicated "feeds" of content from Web sites and other blogs, people in his group can quickly post news they find on those feeds to the internal blog. DaimlerChrysler employs Web log software at a few of its U.S. plants; managers discuss problems and keep a record of their solutions. And American Airlines, where only 20% of the company's highly mobile workforce has corporate email, is considering blogs as a way to give employees more channels to management.

The Hartford Financial Services Group is already finding success using blogs in one of its mobile groups. A team of 40 field technology managers, who serve as links between The Hartford's network of insurance agents and the home office, set up a blog in August. They use it to share information about e-commerce features and solutions to technology problems. Before, email and voice mail sufficed, but email threads would die, and there was no way to search past shared information. "We don't get a chance to talk with each other as often as we'd like," says Steve Grebner, one of The Hartford's field managers, who thinks of the blog a little like a town square. "To me, it's like there's 14--or 40--brains out there, and you might as well tap into that knowledge base."

See also, this from last year.