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March 13, 2005
Blogging 101 - Radio Free Europe
By QBlog in Blogging 101
Sing
Reason: it could polish up the grey.
Put that, put that, put that up your wall
That this isn't country at all
Raving station, beside yourself
Keep me out of country in the word
Deal the porch is leading us absurd.
Push that, push that, push that to the hull
That this isn't nothing at all.
Straight off the boat, where to go?
Calling on in transit, calling on in transit
Radio Free Europe
- REM, "Radio Free Europe"
What Is RFE?
Radio Free Europe was "established in 1949 as a nonprofit, private corporation to broadcast news and current affairs programs to Eastern European countries behind the Iron Curtain."
RFE was founded on the conviction that the "first requirement of democracy is a well informed citizenry." By freely broadcasting to countries with limited (or nonexistent) press freedoms, RFE informed the citizens in ways their own governments would never allow. RFE provided an alternative to the propaganda and lies force-fed to the people by totalitarian regimes. Those regimes occasionally resorted to threats and violence in an effort to silence the voices of RFE.
However, RFE was not deterred and continued with its mission to inform those living in countries with controlled media.
Impact of RFE
The impact of RFE is hard to measure, though its influence in changing the political landscape in Eastern Europe (and the former Soviet Union) is undeniable. Boris Yeltsin, former president of Russia had this to say on the 40th Anniversary of RFE, March 1993:
It would be difficult to overestimate the importance of your (RFE) contribution to the destruction of the totalitarian (Soviet) regime. No less important are your efforts to inform listeners in Russia about events in our country and abroad. We...rely on your objective illumination of Russian and international events... and in protecting democratic reforms.
The spirit of RFE continues with radio and satellite stations broadcasting to nations that lack basic press freedoms (or are developing those important freedoms for the first time).
And Blogging?
I see some obvious parallels with the way RFE assisted in undermining communist regimes during the Cold War and how blogs are undermining the efforts of Pan-National, Mega Corps to control content. No, I'm not saying Sony Corporation operates like the former Soviet Union, but that blogs erode the historical power of the "Gatekeepers." That erosion is similar to the success of RFE and equally irritating to the regimes it impacts.
But unlike radio, blogs can be published by anyone, from anywhere. The Corporations know this but most have yet to develop a coherent strategy on how to deal with this new, blogging reality (similarly the Soviet Union failed to develop an effective strategy to deal with RFE and resorted to "jamming"). Books like The Cluetrain Manifesto and The Red Couch outline ways in which Corporations can embrace blogging (or the Net in general), maintain their Corporate identity and help the bottom line in the process.
Yes, the idea of surrendering control over information scares the crap out of the average CEO but the alternative is a slow, painful slide into irrelevance. "What if they say my company sucks? What if everyone starts complaining about product X?" Well, the truth is that the conversations will occur in spite of the Corporation's efforts to control them. So, why not earn some of that coveted "good will" by encouraging (maybe even facilitating) that dialogue instead of trying to control it? That makes sense and will, in the long run, help the bottom line.
Conclusion
Like RFE, blogs are here to stay. Like RFE, they can't be silenced by spin, "jamming," fancy propaganda or Google Bombing. Unlike the Soviet Union, Corporations can successfully coexist with blogs and even join in the fun. Does your business embrace blogging? Why or why not?
Comments
Those are the "average CEOs" then, are they? They're above average.
I posit that there are no "average" CEO's
Of course, the use of the term average may imply "middle of the road", or "not great but neither bad." In the case of garnering general notice in blogs, I would go with free press versus no press. Unless the blog in question is exposing some item of heinous malfeasance or great public import, such as the Dan Rather affair, most of the blog output will become the unread, unexposed refuse of the internet, shortly forgotten by those even tempted to read it, much less take action upon it. Sitting, as it were, in some massive electronic cross reference clogging up the search engine indices... I, of course, refer back to the aptly titled "Blogging 101 - Don't Suck"
I find that most do, in fact, very much suck.
WWDB used to say that there were no "average" IBO's - we were all extraordinary since we were doing extraordinary things. I now ask: "cream of the crap, or crap of the cream?"
How could I have been so blind?
>Yes, the idea of surrendering control over information scares the crap out of the average CEO
Not true. Average CEO don't give a crap if their business is sound. My CEO will LOVE to have our name on blogs.
Besides, how many sites / blogs says MS sucks? Yet most of them have MS OS :)
If you products / services have value, criticism won't scare you.
Posted by: Imran Aziz | March 14, 2005 4:37 AM