Blogging Behind the Nonprofit Firewall: The ROI Approach

Benjamin Greenberg works for Physicians for Human Rights but I "met" him on Facebook through a mutual friend, Marian.  I actually got a chance to meet Ben face-to-face at a recent Berkman Center Thursday Bloggers meetup.  Ben and I also follow each other on Twitter (he's @minorjive) and that's where I heard him mention this presentation. 

It's about why a blog behind the firewall makes sense -- part ROI business case, part introductory training.  He kindly gave me permission to share it with all of you.  We did a quick chat interview:

What was the purpose?

The idea was to orient folks to why do it and what practically it will be for and then some brief training in how to blog. I customized the blog to make it easier for people to start posts w/out going to the backend first.

What were some of their questions? Was there resistance?  Is this a prelude to blogging outside of the firewall?

I did not overstate my hopes that it will change internal culture.  There was was not a lot of stated resistance only a little bit of discomfort w/having to check it everyday.  Many people liked the trade off for less email. We had to sort out what communication is better for  blog and what doesn't belong there and when email will be required.  I tried for a balance between not being prescriptive and laying out some guidelines. We need to let people figure out how to make use of the tech for their real needs. The other resistance was about having to get notification emails when people comment on one's post but I had made a two column comparison that showed emailing one article resulting in 240 emails org wide vs one blog post resulting in 4 deletable notifications to the blogger.

This morning I was struck by a point that Jeremiah Owyang made about time management and email.

Responding to emails leads to more emails: The more you respond to emails, the more you will receive. Keep in mind what your core goals are (why is your employer paying you) and try to manage and budget this.

Certainly the time suck and drain of too much email can be a lever for change to adopt alternatives, such as an internal blog or intrablog.  So, I imagine the adoption issues are similar to moving to intranet, wikispace, or basecamp to manage team or internal communications.   How much do you have to guide the change?

More thoughts here.

Comments

[Ben Greenberg]

Hi Beth. This was really fun to do with you.

[Kami Huyse]

I am bookmarking this for my Internal Comms topic. The breakdown of e-mail vs. blog notifications was one I never considered.

[Michael Ben-Nes]

Hi Beth,

I assume part of the calculation takes into account the size of the staff and their different locations.

Beside that, for internal use I think Wiki can achieve more then blogs in most cases.

[Beth Kanter]

Michael:

Thanks for commenting. Wondering if you could elaborate? Do you have any examples?

[Michael Ben-Nes]

Hi Beth,

The best example I can think of is Wikipedia. The concept is simple, everyone can add or edit pages.

An internal wiki can be used to:
spread news,
Build knowledge base,
Stuff bio,
Brain storming,
Event arrangement,
etc...

Best,
Michael