Good examples of organisational blogging

There's still limited activity in the Australian corporate or government blogging area, however in other parts of the world this channel for customer or citizen engagement is growing rapidly.

However not all organisations appear to be using the medium well. In July the Wall Street Journal reported on a Forrester Research study of 90 blogs run by Fortune 500 companies. The study found that Most Corporate Blogs Are Unimaginative Failures.

The article stated that,

...most B2B blogs are “dull, drab, and don’t stimulate discussion.” Seventy percent stuck to business or technical topics, 74% rarely get comments, and 56% simply regurgitated press releases or other already-public news.

It went on to say that this isn't the death knell for corporate blogging,

Forrester doesn’t recommend that businesses give up on blogging, however. Instead, it suggests that they spice the blogs up. Most B2B bloggers publish irregularly, don’t stick to it for very long, and rarely inject personality into their posts. That’s a formula for failure. In order to make a blog lively, a business has to offer visitors something more – musings from an executive, insight into how a product decision was made, something funny. Forrester cites Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz’s blog and Tibco’s “Greg the Architect” videos as good examples of B2B blogs.

Forrester's study recommended for strategies for corporate blog success,

• Strategy One: Be A Conversation Starter, Not A Spoiler
• Strategy Two: Make Blog Content Entertaining, Easy To Digest And To Use
• Strategy Three: Connect The Dots Between Events And Community Involvement
• Strategy Four: Invite Thought Leaders, But Coach Them On Community Etiquette

To this end, Josh Catone of SitePoint has catalogued 15 Companies That Really Get Corporate Blogging.

There's some excellent examples of blogs that bring personality and relevance to organisations, without being disrespectful towards customers or the brand.