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Bother in the blogosphere – by Wayne Drew

August 1, 2009

­There’s been bother in the blogosphere. Following the Downing Street resignation over spurious blogging campaigns came some minor ructions over corporate blogging too. When Jacaranda, a highly respected agency, produced its iconoclastic blog, about the IVCA Awards, there was considerable fluttering in the corporate dovecots.

However, underlying the blogger’s criticism that the same old faces won every year, his implicit point that the industry needs to develop a dynamic process to identify and promote creativity, was not necessarily a bad idea. Self-analysis can prevent complacency and actually stimulate innovation. Indeed, for too long, there’s been no truly successful forum for corporates, specifically in video and events, to air their views and Jacaranda’s blog clearly demonstrated the popularity of such a “space”, by receiving several hundred visitors within hours of its appearance.

However, any call for greater industry “discussion” is more problematic than it might initially seem as, unless carefully moderated, it could easily lead to ranting or backbiting. The challenge is how you engage the corporate sector as a whole in the debate, so that it’s not restricted to just a couple of London companies whose views, by default, are seen as representing the whole industry.

Unless this is achieved, corporates could, unintentionally, present to clients the image of a sector at war with itself, where the questioning of the quality of each other’s work, would ultimately undermine its overall credibility.

That’s the Pandora’s Box such bloggers risk opening, at a time when the speed and immediacy of digital media makes the need for responsible approaches to “open discussion” more important than ever. Arguably, the trade bodies best provide this role, as they could bring a modicum of objectivity to the proceedings. Otherwise, from such “tongue-in-cheek” beginnings, this trend could escalate, and the term “publish and be damned” take on a whole new, and potentially disastrous, meaning for our industry, at a time of such extreme commercial sensitivity.

Wayne Drew is an independent media consultant