Problem: Management Decision

To Blog or Not to Blog Just this month, your company, Aero Precision, a manufacturer of aircraft engine components, completed the upgrade of its computer system-the first upgrade in nearly 15 years.124 Every one cheered when the DOS-based operating software was replaced with the newest Windows-based version. Now, for the first time data are being electronically collected directly from the factory floor, and the engineering, tooling, and maintenance departments are connected. You and the other top managers expect to reap terrific gains in productivity-and profitability-as a result of the upgrade. As the operations manager, you were ultimately responsible for revamping the entire system, and the process has left you motivated to adopt even more technological advances. Over the course of the upgrade, you came across several short articles and references to blogs, which you learned was short for "web logs." Not too savvy about these things at the time, you asked your IT consultant, and she told you that blogs are web pages that serve as publicly accessible journals. That didn't help you much, so she directed you to a variety of blogs to find out what they were all about. After only a few visits you started thinking about creating a blog for Aero Precision.

Some managers use blogs to communicate with employees, and others use them as marketing tools to "get the message out" about their companies. The question for you is how Aero Precision would use blogs. Only 30 of Aero Precision's 100 employees have computers at their desks (only 30 have desks). The rest of the employees are shop-floor workers who use the 20 terminals located on stands throughout the factory to record their personal production information. Shop-floor terminals don't have Internet access. Could you justify connecting the 20 factory terminals to the Internet? And do you really want employees standing around the shop-floor terminals reading a company blog? But then you wonder, "Would that be any different from them hovering around the bulletin board by the time clock reading the company's biweekly newsletter? And with a blog, the information would be more timely." Or would it? You pause to think about the time required to maintain a blog. And what would you link out to? A public blog would need to be an authoritative voice on-well, what? You could hook up to links about aerodynamics, metal prices, and travel statistics. If you could leverage Aero Precision's technical expertise, you would be able to position the company as a premier provider of component parts for aircraft engines. You may even be able to convert the research you do for the blog into new customers or products for new industries. If you put your mind to it, you are confident that you can brainstorm enough valuable resources for a blog, but you come back to the issue of time. Would the time spent be worth it?

Questions: 1. Does it make sense for Aero Precision to create a company blog for employees only? In other words, is a blog the best medium to get the company's message out to employees and to hear what they feel and think? Explain.

2. Brainstorm possible items for inclusion on an Aero Precision blog destined for public viewing. Can you think of any topics that you would want to avoid linking to?

3. How could a blog play a role in designing a company's strategy? (Recall the issues discussed in Chapter 6, "Organizational Strategy.")

4. Do you create a public blog for Aero Precision? Why or why not?