Have you
ever noticed how it sometimes takes an epiphany to reveal the reality of an
obvious truth? Like, I don’t know, sitting in traffic in a $60k SUV burning
$3.50 a gallon and, even though you’ve sat in the same gridlock every day for
years, on this day you happen to notice the endless lines of single-occupant
vehicles, the single half-empty carpool lane, and for the first time it dawns
on you with sparkling clarity the breathtaking stupidity of modern life? Yeah,
that feeling. I had a moment like that yesterday. Not during my commute, but during
a panel discussion about blogging and digital media technology.

I was part of a panel for the Backstage Pass series of industry discussions at Pillsbury Winthrop in Palo Alto, moderated by Tamara Ireland Stone of Rainmaker Communications. Though the discussion was highly practical, focusing on the challenges and pitfalls of new information channels like blogging, I fell into my usual routine of veering off into the social and philosophical context of the debate. While it’s important from a business perspective to understand the immediate impact of disruptive technologies, I’m always interested in seeing the flow of the bigger picture—in this case, how the control of information is becoming distributed, how consumers are learning new skills to filter and process data, how businesses are having to learn how to shift from polished monologue to broader dialog with their audience.

The old
paradigm of corporate communications that businesses understand—the one-way
broadcasting of a tightly designed and controlled message—is giving way at an accelerating
pace to a chaotic and uncontrolled market discussion. Bulletin boards, chat
rooms, blogs and list groups allow consumers to share information and influence
public perceptions about companies and products, and businesses are quickly
being relegated to just another participant in the conversation. Some companies
are actively engaged in the discussion, some are trying out various schemes for
influencing the dialog, but most are just standing on the sidelines scratching
their heads.

So while we
panel experts were doling out our sage advice about how businesses can better
understand and engage the blogosphere it suddenly occurred to me why this is
such an immense challenge for so many businesses. I always just assumed it was
about control. Businesses want to minimize risk; control is a powerful tool in
minimizing risk; and the new channels of communication take much of the control
away from business. Panic ensues. But my epiphany was about something much more
obvious and fundamental.  

The advice
that has become standard among blogging experts is that any business engaging
in a dialog with their market must be authentic, open and responsive. You can’t
just hire a PR agency or a freelancer to write your blog—you’ll be defrauded or
disregarded, or both, in an Internet minute. Companies must put executives on
the frontline who can engage intelligently, responsibly and passionately about
what the company does. This is an obvious challenge for companies that have a
contentious relationship with their market, a hyper-secretive culture, an
impatience for dealing with questions, or a style of business that might not
stand up well under public scrutiny. But it’s also a serious challenge for
companies beleaguered by a far more common vice: uncertainty.

And this,
finally, was my penetrating revelation into the obvious. Why do so many
businesses fear the give-and-take dialog that is the currency of our new
communications technology? Not primarily because of the lack of control—that only
scares those who were good at controlling their image in the first place, an
elite few who are now engaged in tactics to control their image in the new
paradigm. What far more businesses fear is the lack of a consistent, cohesive
and compelling story–much less business operation–they can be confident in sharing and defending clearly to
win the hearts and minds of their market. After all, it’s easy to package, polish
and publish a perfect message for mass consumption. But to embody that message as a business,
to understand its meaning and its implications throughout every commercial function, to champion that message and to believe it, that takes something that most businesses just
haven’t spent a whole lot of timing working out.