Arguing against a fear of open collaboration inside an enterprise
Opening your organisation up to blogging or wiki’s is difficult for many
organisations. It flies in the face of traditional management control over
messages and information. It opens the organisation to all sorts of crazy or
litigious things that people may write.
Your milage and details will vary, but the basic argument for the safety of open
internal enterprise collaboration goes something like this:
- Anything people publish will have their name on it.
- Is there anything an employee could write on their blog or a wiki that would
create a problem for your organisation but does not breech existing policies
around communication, confidentiality, etc? If so, is that a problem with
blogs or a problem with your existing policies?
- If an employee breaches communication policy, is it more likely to occur in
email or on a public forum? Which would you prefer, one you can see and act
on or one that is hidden and may surface in the future?
Beyond all the policies and controls, your employees aren’t idiots and should
value their job. (If not, that’s two good things to find out ASAP anyway.)
