Its all about ‘B’s this year.

Its all about ‘B’s this year. Blogs.

Blogs (or blawgs if you are a legal blogger) are something that I’m sure many of you participate in or even casually read as you search the internet highway or Google as its now become known.

Justin Patten of Human-law.co.uk, has just launched a consultancy to advise corporate’s on how to get the best out of blogs and warns: there is much tricky ground.

His background is employment then intellectual property law but he surprised himself by getting a blogging IP infringement case quite out of the blue and has become hooked on the topic ever since. He says “I initially started off being interesting in technology, but have now decided that it will be a large part of my business.”

Pegged as “Social media” his consultancy plans to advise corporates (including law firms) on how to use these ‘new age’ tools for marketing and internal communications. He confirms “social media covers: Blogging, wiki’s, the importance of RSS, Vlogs (video blogs), podcasting and instant messaging.” Instant messaging is tipped as the ‘new big thing’ for 2007 with some predicting it will become bigger than email. Which means, I’m afraid, you have little choice but to pay attention. Justin comments “all these topics relate to IP (branding) and employment law, essentially its all about communication with staff and customers. Organisations are really going to have to open up to using these technologies.”

Justin says that doing his own blog and getting a client on the back of it, shows that the web and blogging can link you up to anyone, but warns, it can have a serious downside. He says” There was a case with a bike lock company. Someone posted a video of a bike-lock being picked with a plastic pen. The company chose to ignore it: but you can see this type of video could represent defamation and brand damage.”

He comments further “The problem they had was: what was their recourse? If you threaten to sue, you get backlash blogging.” Balancing his view, he adds, “Fundamentally it leads to more truthful business practice, because anyone can be exposed easily these days.”

He cites an example “last summer one of the biggest global law firms, took a preventative strategy for a client. Before the football (soccer) they acted for a company who worked for the World Cup. They sent letters to people saying ‘please don’t infringe our clients TV rights, we will be watching websites and will take action.’ They sent this to a well known blogger company (one of the biggest weblogs in the world, run by a set of individuals.)

Justin continues “The bloggers didn’t like the letter so posted it on their website. They then linked it to a high-profile, negative story on the firm.” He illustrates the consequences: “If you search the law firm in question, all their ‘good’ marketing comes up, but this bloggers letter and story is now number four on any Google search, which means bloggers are able to influence Google profiles. The result is that any new, existing clients and staff will have the story highlighted daily.”

Justin continues “In the old days law firms could send aggressive letters. Now there is no recourse.” Then adds “There is another element. Part of the way bloggers operate is with an anti corporate bias. The bloggers in this incident, did research on the law firm in question and the client. They discovered the client had mentioned a high profile business school on his CV. When they checked, he hadn’t completed an MBA, as they supposed, but an expensive, short course. The bloggers added this to the letter and negative story link.”

They linked to anyone else covering the story including Technorati.com, a search engine for blogs. Justin says “visit that site, and you will see you can easily link to anyone with similar stories.” He finishes “the law firm in question would have been unwise to take legal action, it would have done more damage to their reputation.”

Justin mentions another worrying example of a blog affecting a corporate brand “A guy from one big telecoms company posted a racist weblog The telecoms company were eventually forced to suspend the employee because it was negatively impacting on their brand.”

He cites another case briefly “In an employment law case, a jury member put on a blog that the defendant was ‘an idiot’. The prosecution appealed the case because of the blog.”

Justin suggests though that most damage is not done to organisations with formal blogging policies. He says “staff usually say positive things about firms.” But adds “The biggest damage is individuals who blog on their own time, who can easily be picked up on search engines.” He continues “They could say anonymously that their boss is having an affair.”

Justin says that companies can protect themselves from these kinds of threats adding “I have links with, Simon Rogers at Market Sentinel, who offer online monitoring.”

Despite all this worrying news, Justin doesn’t believe that blogs will be about reputational damage but more to do with productivity and communication. He says “blogs can have a major impact.” Then going off topic for a moment says “What happened after the dot.com crash was a range of new applications like movabletype.org and typepad.com. They allowed anyone to reach a global web audience at zero cost. As most are Opensource they’ve leapt past corporate IT capability.”

He continues with his productivity message “People are much more effective if allowed to use wiki’s and blogs in research or to communicate”. He cites an example “One telecoms company is estimated to have saved a million dollars on the back of using internal blogs. Because staff and clients are pooling information that everyone can read, it is bringing people more up to speed without having to have meetings.”

He says that one law firm leading the way in this area is Allen & Overy’s, Ruth Ward who is head of KM (see FT article on this link http://www.ft.com/cms/s/182fa894-14df-11db-b391-0000779e2340.html). Ruth has implemented blogs, wiki’s and social tagging.” Justin illustrates the point. “As an example, if you are reading five weblogs about zebras, social tagging allows readers to group all the information, then allows others to link to it. Saving everyone time on multiple searches.”

Justin warns would-be bloggers “Be aware of copyright infringement with the ‘copy and paste’ function. One of the things prevalent in the ‘blogosphere’ (blogging world) is that’s its worse to have your articles copied without a name than with one.”

How is Justin planning to help in this heady new world of social media? Justin warms to his theme “I can offer legal help, but think consultancy advice would be more positive. I can assist in how best to work with new media to humanize companies.” He continues “The benefit is that it allows junior staff to have a voice. It also flattens corporate structures and makes people feel more connected to their organisations.” Then adds “I can offer research on company blogs that both clients and staff can input into.”

I ask about guidelines for blogging staff. Justin says “Microsoft, don’t have guidelines but have blogsmart which offers a code of conduct.” He continues “It asks users to respect their contract of employment and respect the debate. Microsoft has got better relations with clients and around ten percent of staff to blog. Its humanised their company. Then adds a cautionary note “its important not to be too oppressive. You can add a moderator to filter content.” And finishes “Microsoft’s, Robert Scoble who left the company last year did a lot to humanise the Microsoft brand.” □