So says business week in its May 2, 2005 cover story. Blogs Will Change Your Business

Look past the yakkers, hobbyists, and political mobs. Your customers and rivals are figuring blogs out. Our advice: Catch up...or catch you later

Blogging on the job? The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a group devoted to "defending freedom in the digital world," has some advice on how to avoid being caught telling tales out of school. The EFF guide "How to Blog Safely (About Work or Anything Else)," is a how-to guide for bloggers worried about protecting their privacy and free speech.
[via CNET and the IAB SmartBrief]

The WSJ reported today that Starbucks is getting its feet wet on Capitol Hill[Sub Reqd], and the ride's been a bumpy one so far. In fact, several other companies, such as Red Hat Inc., a software company; Monster.com, a job-search Web company; and Google Inc., the search-engine giant, all hired their first lobbyists within the past few years.

Will bloggers ever have a lobbyist? Who would sponsor such a person or group? Or, do we already have one. I know that blogging has the attention of politicians, but to date we've been blowing in the winds and whatever direction they happen to be going that day.

Perhaps thinking that we'll actually put an advocate in the capital is a bit far fetched, but is it that unreasonable to think that someone like Google, who owns Blogger, or SixApart would put someone in washington, or at least tag along with a lobbying group on citizens media rights or something?

MKEonline.com is running a weekly blog poll with some of the best blogs from the Wisconsin area. I'm in the poll this week! Voting is until April 13, and the voting page (and more info) is at http://www.mkeonline.com/people/blogcontest.asp.

The blogs come from MKEonline's 1000 Voices blog directory, a collection of blogs written in, for, or about Wisconsin. Read them online and vote for your favorite by 11:59 p.m., April 13. The blog with the most votes will be announced April 14 on MKEonline.

A conversation with a customer last night prompted the question of "who's thinking about corporate governance of weblogs?" Meaning: When a company has weblogs that are written by its employees, how are they being monitored, what quality controls are in place, what are the 'managers of the blogging program' really accountable for, and so on...?

I know, blogs are supposed to be the unfiltered voice of the individual connecting with the customer. However, when we start to add blogging to job descriptions, things change a bit. Or, when we start to ask those "thought leaders" in the company that are already our most prized assets, we have to have a good answer for the WIIFM question when we ask them to start blogging on the behalf of the company.

More to the point, employees need to understand the power of their words in media, and employers need to understand, and deliver a crystal clear set of expectations on what they're seeking from the would-be blogger and what's not acceptable.

I don't have the answers to this yet, but as more companies think about what it means to have their internal associates, CEO, or anyone else from their company blogging, they need to pay attention to expectations and accountabilities.