Comments for Advanced Organizational Communication Blog
Walter,
As soon as I read your post I immediately thought of the General Motors Fastlane blog. See my post http://
blogsurvey.backbonemedia....m_blog_les.html where I describe two earlier interview posts with GM customers who have commented on the GM blog, but have not received a direct response or blog comment in return. In GM's case I don't think their blog’s ‘synthetic transparency’ is intentional. GM has repeatedly stated in posts their bloggers will not be able to answer every comment. However, for the two people I interviewed, their perception was that they were going to receive a reply but did not. I think you term is especially useful to companies, in that there maybe unintentional synthetic transparency on the part of a company. A corporate blogger should be aware of this and check to see if their blog is synthetically transparent.
John
The logic of this assertion is flawed, anti-establishment rhetoric.
Either that, or essentially every corporate communication (or individual one for that matter) is--by this definition--'synthetic.'
Here's why.
To categorize corporate blogging as 'synthetic transparency' on par with a sound-bite such as 'Have a nice day!' is simply defining (arguably annoying) pleasantries and communications of intended substance as the same thing.
Every business (or individual for that matter) makes selective (and not automatically 'synthetic') disclosure, not just those choosing to blog.
Selective disclosure of aspects of my business (or personal life for that matter) with 'openness, honesty, and transparency' at the exclusion of other private aspects of my business (or personal life for that matter) pre-dates the corporate blogging phenomenon.
Selective disclosure does not render the disclosure 'synthetic.' Keeping some information back does not render the disclosed information disingenuous, insincere or untrue by default.
I'll grant you that it can happen, but it is not inherent to corporate blogging. This is the flaw in your reasoning.
Selective disclosure is integral to the nature of all communications in corporate life (or personal life for that matter).
It's either that, or we're all plastic, TVP, or cubic zirconium. Take your pick.
Kip, I posted this on your blog as well:
Correct me if I'm wrong but what I think you're missing is exactly what a lot of companies are jumping on the blog bandwagon for. A marketing tactic. The more popular blogs become, the more bandwagon bloggers there will be trying to show the public how "real" they can be. The original purpose of a blog was to share thoughts and ideas on a more informal stage and the more companies start to stray away from that, i.e. promise to look into suggestions and never do, some blogs will turn into those comment cards you fill out at restaurants but nothing ever changes. This gives the blog readers a sense of transparency into the company without actually letting them in at all. A synthetic transparency.
I also want to make clear that I don't believe this applies to all or even the majority of blogs, but that it is a phenomenon that can pick up as the importance of blogging becomes in the corporate world.
(This is also posted on my blog.)
Leigh, thank you for your comment. I think it's really great that syndication/subscription technologies like blogging are finding their way into advanced coursework curriculum.
That said, I must respectfully disagree that a corporate blog is 'a marketing tactic.' A corporate blog is no more a tactic than a telephone, a web page, or a press release. Corporate blogs are a communications medium. They are an innovation to engage a community of people with a common interest (remember, you have to subscribe to a blog--it doesn't find its way into your inbox in the form of spam--you have to opt in to participate).
I also disagree that the purpose of a blog is to demonstrate 'realness.' I'm not sure the original purpose of a blog is different than the purpose of corporate blogs today--they are primarily content management systems with persistent social dialogue.
I will concede many corporate blogging efforts will fail because of a lack of commitment to discourse. But many will succeed and are succeeding in engaging in the 'nirvana' of marketing and communications professionals: scalable one-to-one engagement with someone interested in my product or service. Perhaps this is similar to the 'comment card' behavior of which you speak. If a corporation is truly disinterested in feedback and customer engagement, the corporate blog will only expedite the customer's discovery of the disinterest.
I suppose we'll have to agree to disagree agreeably that 'nothing ever changes' as a result of corporate feedback loops. I have been contacted dozens of times over the years after having completed those 'comment cards,' and have seen specific corporate change result from my feedback--and I've been thanked for it. I have worked in organizations paying tens of thousands of dollars for product or service dialogue—dialogue inferior and overfiltered when compared to content contained in a well-executed corporate blog.
I stand by the point in my post that corporate blogs are selective, not synthetic, communications; that the synthetic behaviors referenced in your class blog post are orthogonal to corporate blogging. Such 'synthetic transparency' is in the corporate DNA before the corporate blog is ever conceived or created. There is no causal relationship here.
I absolutely see your point. I did not mean to say that every company putting out a blog is in it for the marketing nor out to evade customer opinions by pretending to care. In all honesty I haven't found a blog yet that I feel falls into the description I discussed earlier. I am just more hesitant to believe that every company blogging in the future will be in it for the honesty. While thinking about this topic of marketing and blogging I came across an extremely interesting article by Denali Flavor's EVP of marketing and how he's been using blogs in the company. I found it very interesting and while not deceitful, the idea of marketing often has a hidden (or maybe not so hiden) agenda.
The defnition seems to imply that synthetic equals invalid or fake, is this how it is intended to be read? (Interesting angle though)
Hi Andre,
I think synthetic transparency is meant to imply something more like hollow or maybe shallow. The inspiration for coining the term was Norman Fairclough's notion of "synthetic personalization." Here's how he explained it in his book Language and Power:
... a compensatory tendency to give the impression of treating each of the people 'handled' en masse as an individual. Examples would be air travel (have a nice day!), restaurants (Welcome to Wimpy!) and the simulated conversation (for example, chat shows) and bonhomie which litter the media. (p. 62)
Applied to corporate blogging efforts the analogy would be giving people the impression that they are on the inside or have access but really are being "handled" and kept at a distance. I liken it to management asking employees their opinion and inviting them to participate in decision-making so that they feel involved but then not really being responsive to their contributions. Rather than being truly empowered, employees are kept at a very "safe" distance.
I should note that "synthetic transparency" is admittedly a fuzzy, subjective term but I hope that it will give people a way to challenge companies on the limits of their transparency. For me it's ultimately to be used not to critique for destructive purposes but to push, prod, challenge and constructively hold companies to a higher standard.
Thanks for your comment!
Walter
:- ) thank you for the clarification, now I have a new term to describe the South African government, and for that matter the true character of all ellection-cycle based, so-called 'democratic' political popularity pretensions.
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