An encouraging trend! There seem to be more leadership blogs emerging. A few notable examples include:
Bob Lutz, GM's vice chairman's blog
Jonathan Schwartz, Sun Microsystem's CEO's blog
Jacque Kemp, ING Asia / Pacific CEO's blog
Mark Price, Waitrose Managing Director's blog
Of these, I think my favorite is Mark Price's blog. He combines his personal experience (trying to lose weight) with practical advice (a nutritionist offering tips and feedback) as well as recipes (healthy and otherwise), a discussion forum, and shopping list functionality. In my mind Mr. Price has done a wonderful job of mixing his humanity with business. The blog site is human, conversational, practical and usable. He invites a conversation. These are the marks of a great blog to which I aspire. For more objective standards you may want to check out the Blogger’s Choice Awards.
But hey, since this is my blog, here’s where I’ll offer my own two cents.
In Mr. Kemp’s blog I love that he’s using social media to talk about social media. He brings in terrific examples of how ING is using Web 2.0 to create conversation. Mr. Kemp uses illustrative maps, refers to ING’s use of Second Life, and uses SlideShare (a sort of slide version of YouTube) while talking about ING strategy, technology and community activities. The tone is conversational and comfortable. Blogger’s Choice agrees: “My Cup of Cha” has been nominated as one of the best corporate blogs.
Personally I’d love to see some additional user interaction on the blog. Links to financial planning tools. Links to additional leadership blogs within ING. Perhaps some personal tidbits about Mr. Kemp and other ING leaders. It’s a great company. Let us get to know you a little bit!
But all in all, a “My Cup of Cha” is a wonderful example of leadership blogging in action.
Similarly, Mr. Lutz’s blog offers terrific information about (not surprisingly) GM cars. If you love a GM car, chances are that he (or his writing team) have blogged about it. He gets a fair number of comments, so kudos to Mr. Lutz for interaction. His tone is fairly open and conversational. He doesn’t discourage conversation, even when it’s a bit controversial.
Again, I'd love to see Mr. Lutz adopt some additional user interaction, a la Car Talk. OK, since I’m from Boston I’ll be the first to admit that I'm a sucker for the Tappet brothers, but their 'Time Kill Central' rocks. It's the perfect mix of humor and information.
Overall I'm simply thrilled that more leaders are blogging. Cheers to the folks listed above, among others! And the more leaders that get their thoughts out there in a personal way, the better.
