When someone gives you the keys to their blog, they hope you can drive. So do you! If you’re like me, when you haven’t blogged for a while, you worry that you might drive like this:

Blogging shouldn’t really feel like that though. 

There’s a school of thought that says: when you set things free you get rewarded. That Preciousness leads to stagnation. That open platforms - in the right hands - are improved by every fresh dollop of enthusiasm. And this blog is a good example of that. Only a week ago, we discussed that we should start blogging more and in a matter of days there are posts spilling from the seams. And the range of topics and expertise is impressive.

This approach to blogging is, of course, only possible  for companies under a certain size. It relies on ensuring every hire has sharp communication skills, respects their employers personally and has views that don’t conflict significantly with the company’s core philosophy. But I also think it’s tempting even for small companies to look at their blog as a means to project a certain culture - and so restrict authorship to a few. That’s the wrong way to look at it. The blog is not a projection of a culture, it’s the result of it.

Someone (Russell Davies, probably) once wrote that thing about blogging is ‘the more you do it, the more you do it’. It’s about momentum, not craft. And the more people around you that do it, the more you feel enthused to join in. That’s certainly happened here over the last week or so and it reminds me that the power of blogging is in its ‘social-ness’. Posts lead to counter-posts; the most interesting points often appear in the comments.

I’m really interested to know more about other companies’ blogging ethos these days. How does it work at your place? I know there’s lots of people out there that wish they blogged more again. So here’s a weird idea: why don’t we?