Internal blogging is just one example of open information sharing inside an organisation

Linking to Seven Reasons for Your Company to Start an Internal Blog on CIO.com, Jack Vinson reflects on a separate discussion about the value of blogging to knowledge management:

"In a recent discussion on the ACT-KM discussion list, someone mentioned that blogging is just one means of communication - that it isn't the be-all, end-all of knowledge sharing.  I like this reminder because promoters tend to fall all over themselves with fantastic claims.  On the other side, blogging provides a means of communication that people may need and don't currently have within their organization."

Good point, Jack. This also reminds me of some points I've made in the past about how blogs can be used in many different ways, and not just for knowledge sharing - I brainstormed a number of different ways a blogging can be used:

• Data and information broadcasting
• WCMS replacement
• Journals
• Groupware 2.0
• One-To-Many blogging
• Social blogging

With this in mind, I was also interested by this comment from Dennis McDonald on the CIO.com article, who is currently researching the use of blogs in project management, and says:

"After doing just a few interviews I'm finding a wide range of perceptions. Some are using them as lightweight content management tools, some are using them as portals to organize access to and views of a variety of other tools, and others think they are inappropriate given they lack the structure and formality of dedicated PM tools. While I haven't yet conducted enough interviews to support any real conclusions, 'reduction in email' is the most concrete benefit mentioned so far."

Maybe not a ground breaking reason for internal blogging, but if all we achieved with blogs is a reduction in email then I'd take that. However, I would still question if its blogging as such that provides this benefit or is it simply the action of providing open access to information (rather than the means of doing it). For example, I pointed recently to JP Rangaswami's approach to open email. I would also suggest that those that have never had access to platforms that enable open information sharing, would see this as revolutionary whilst those that have, might only see it as evolutionary - see my post from a few days ago about the future Enterprise 2.0.

Technorati tags: Jack Vinson, Knowledge Management, Knowledge Sharing, Blogging, Blogs, Internal Blogs, Enterprise 2.0, Social Software, Enterprise Social Software, CIO.com, Dennis McDonald