Thursday, September 27, 2012

CEO Blogs


For this week's PRL614 blog, we were tasked with reading a CEO blog and evaluating it.  Is it an effective form of public relations for the organization? Is it in sync with the other communications by the company? Is there more risk or reward in a CEO blog of this nature?  I chose to use the blog of Dallas Mavericks' owner, Mark Cuban: "Blog Maverick". 

The most recent post was about Wall Street.  Others below it touched on issues like CEO pay, corporations, taxes, even politics.  My first instinct: what are the Mavericks doing allowing their CEO to comment on such highly-politicized and potentially-alienating topics?!  It seems to go against many principles of public relations to allow a CEO, on a blog associated with the business (the Mavericks' official website even links to Cuban's blog), to make such bold statements.

Reading on, I came to realize that Cuban is a masterful writer and a very smart man.  Topics that most people would butcher, he easily navigates, making effective arguments based on intellectual thought.  While his blog still runs the risk of alienating publics of the Mavericks who disagree with his ideas, his ideas are at least articulated in a mature, thoughtful fashion. Inherent in his blog's name (Blog Maverick) is the expectation that this blog will be honest, even rogue.  Cuban will express his ideas about the world in an authentic voice, and he won't sugar-coat hot topics. 

I would be curious to see analytics on his blog.  How many people read this, and who are they? Are they reading this as Mark Cuban, CEO and voice of the Dallas Mavericks? Or are they looking to him for his business expertise? 

I believe Mark Cuban has struck an often-elusive balance in a CEO blog; he is being true to himself in his postings, and is using this blog to build not only his personal brand but that of the Dallas Mavericks.  Who wouldn't want a savvy businessman running their sports team?  In this unique case, Mark Cuban's opinionated CEO blog is a successful use of personal blogging by organizational leadership.

However, most organizations should tread carefully where CEO blogs are concerned.  Something tells me that if the CEO of Chick-Fil-A had a personal and political blog, it may not go over as well as Mark Cuban's blog... What do you think?   

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