The internet is a giant global soap box that provides companies with a cheap and efficient way to reach thousands of constituents–customers, employees, suppliers, the business press, regulators and so on.  On the surface, blogging would seem to be an especially useful way for chief executives to cut through the clutter and take the company’s message directly to stakeholders.  So, why don’t more Fortune 500 CEOs blog?

The New York Times (free, but subscription required) has a lengthy polemic today that suggests that CEOs should not consider blogging as something to be feared, but simply part of their normal duties as the key point person for the enterprise.  The writer, Randall Stross, a professor of business at San Jose State,  delivers a big wet kiss to Jonathan Schwartz of Sun Microsystems for ”embracing the risk” and stops just short of accusing Bill Gates and Steve Jobs of a lack of cajones for not plunging in.  The core of his argument is that: 

When an employee of a publicly traded company publishes regularly on a business blog, something valuable for outside observers is created: a firsthand chronicle. This deserves to be called something special, a primary blog — that is, a primary source, created by a participant or eyewitness — that distinguishes it from all the other blogs (and, yes, from all other newspaper columns, too) that are written at a remove by commentators. Primary blogs maintained by Fortune 500 C.E.O.’s would provide the most vital information to investors.  

Aside from Schwartz, Stross seems unable to come up with another star blogger from the Fortune 500 list, probably because there aren’t any other good bloggers in that august group. 

This dramatic indicator of a certain lack of enthusiasm for blogging by chief executives does not seem to have discouraged Debbie Weil, the only “expert” Stross cites in his article.  Weil is the author of  The Corporate Blogging Book, which is coming out this week, and has a blog/store called Blogwrite for CEOs, which appears to exist to sell the book and Deb’s consulting services but, hey, we all got to make a living.

For those CEOs who are inclined to pass on the joy of blogging but aren’t quite sure why, let me give you five good reasons why your instincts may just be right. 

1. The same reason most CEOs don’t do their own televison commercials. You may be lousy at it.  Writing is a form of public performance and unless you’re a natural like Jonathan Schwartz you might embarass yourself and your company. 
2. It’s time consuming.  It took me about an hour and half to research and write this post and I’ve written for a living for the past 40 years.  Unless you can spare (and commit to) the 3 to 4 hours a week it will take you to write a couple of decent posts, don’t do it.  You’ll wind up with a nearly deserted blog like Whole Foods president John Mackey’s, which was last updated more than a month ago.
3. The reasons your legal department has flagged:  running afoul of safe harbor requirements, intellectual-property issues,  possible defamation claims, unhappy employees or customers chasing common-law tort actions for who knows what reasons.  Sure, the lawyers are overly-cautious assholes; but sometimes they’re right. 
4. Blogs are so last year.  Blogs can be valuable marketing and public relations tools and most companies should be able to find ways to use them effectively.  But, the whole CEO blog thing has been over-hyped and may not age well.  (All the cool guys will be doing video blogs next year.)
5. The foot-in-mouth syndrome.  Are you really going to provide “vital” information to investors (or anybody else) in your blog. Are you going to discuss new products that are in the works that your competitors don’t know about, companies you may be eyeing for acquisition, talks you’re having about being acquired, the suspicion that you may not make the numbers next quarter).  As the “primary” source of this “vital” information to investors (to use Professor Stross’ construct) are you really going to use your public blog as the key method of sharing what you know.  If you are, please give me a chance to see if I own any stock in your company so I can sell it before you start blogging.

Don’t misunderstand.  Blogs and other social media clearly are important new tools to improve enterprise information-sharing and communications both internally and with the outside world.  But, like all corporate communications, there need to be clear guidelines and the process needs to be managed in ways that are sensitive to and capture the undeniable power of free and candid discourse that social media enable while recognizing that corporations can be damaged badly by their misuse. 

And if you and Billy Gates and Stevie Jobs don’t want to blog, that’s okay.  I think we should just leave the kids alone.