Jess’ E-Learning Blog

Sun Microsystems and Yahoo!: Evaluating the use of Blogging as a Tool for Learning 

This entry is an assessable component of my subject this semester. I will evaluate how Sun Microsystems and Yahoo! are adapting blogging technology to facilitate learning in their organisations. This entry will focus on the positives and negatives of using blogging as a tool for learning in these two organisations. 

Sun MicrosystemsSun Microsystems launched their blogging network, blogs.sun.com, midway through 2004. In June of that year, 40 bloggers had signed up (Hanson, Miller & Splawski, 2007), now thousands of Sun employees across the world blog in any of eleven different languages programmed into the network.  A large advocate of the blogging system at Sun Microsystems is its CEO, Jonathan Schwartz who regularly writes entries on his own Sun Microsystems blog. Terry McKenzie of Sun Microsystems mentions that Sun Blogs are beneficial to the globally diverse organisation in that it networks employees together across the globe to create a single community (Cassion-Tansiri, 2007) 

Sun’s blog was created for two reasons: to improve communication with the public and to enhance collaboration with industry experts (Hanson, Miller & Splawski, 2007). Learning was an objective to be achieved in both of these goals. In regards to the public, knowledge is learnt through addressing customers in blog entries, inviting feedback and ideas for product development through leaving comments. Sun’s bottom up blogging style (Rubel, 2005) bypasses Public Relations (PR) personnel. This is useful because learning occurs directly between the public and the employees with expertise and influence in the relevant area of the business, without the distortion of PR or Human Resource Development (HRD) rigidities and formalities. End-user opinion is a valuable source of knowledge has been tapped into through the use of blogging in Sun Microsystems.  

Increased collaboration with industry through the use of blogging is also beneficial to Sun Microsystems. From the optimistic perspective of Sun Microsystems, blogging can open a new discourse with industry in order to increase the organisation’s learning. Sun recommends that all of their employees read not only Sun blogs but other industry blogs as well (Sun News – Sun Blogs, 2004). This is advantageous as Sun is actively drawing knowledge from outside the organisation inside through the informal learning process of using blogs to link with the industry. Sun employees learn as they blog and read, linking to other blogs and forming a learning network.  

However, blogging with either of these audiences in mind is a double-edged sword. Knowledge which is shared on Sun’s Blogs is available to any individual with internet access. With so much emphasis on drawing knowledge into the organisation, there is not much opportunity to develop knowledge between Sun employees in this system. The exposed nature of blogging – being that Sun Blogs are accessible to anyone with internet access – promotes sharing of knowledge but also inhibits it. Sun employees are directed not to share private or confidential information on their blogs (Sun News – Sun Blogs, 2004). While this is a common sense direction, it is also limiting and causes delays in learning which can affect Sun Microsystems. If employees are not to discuss a project they are working on until after it has been completed, then they cannot receive feedback until that period, in which case they cannot adapt to the content of either customer or industry conversation. This results in further developments to the product becoming desirable or necessary after its completion, rather than during its original development, which would be more efficient. 

In addition, with over 3000 blogs in existence at Sun Microsystems (Hanson, Miller & Splawski, 2007), not only is tracking the learning occurring a large and complex task but it is also difficult, if not impossible, to direct what learning occurs, and an even more impossible task to maintain each area of learning at the same pace, avoiding stagnation any area. This type of learning is the direct opposite of Competency Based Training (CBT) present in
Australia as it is unstructured, difficult to measure and includes no trainer or other directory role. 

Yahoo!Yahoo! is another company who uses blogging as a tool for learning. Similar to Sun Microsystems, they encourage employees to blog in order to create and participate in discussions concerning their field of work. Employees are also encouraged to read and comment on blogs outside of their organisation, as well as linking them to their own blogs (Zawodny, 2005). As this idea has been previously discussed in terms of its benefits and drawbacks in regards to Sun Microsystems, it will not be repeated here. In addition, Yahoo! approves of employees, such as Zawodny, maintaining a separate blog outside of work for the purposes of discussing work topics.                                                                    An interesting and beneficial aspect of the Yahoo! blogging community is how embedded it is in the organisation’s culture. On the rare occasions that Zawodny has edited his personal blog, it has not only been noticed by his peers at work but his peers have also discussed his changes with him. This could act as a solution to the aforementioned problem with monitoring the learning occurring through blogging.  If employees are committed to taking advantage of the benefits associated with blogging, then their commitment could be harnessed to monitor the learning occurring through blogs. In a large organisation, a grassroots approach to monitoring blogging – as employees monitor each other – could be more efficient and therefore more preferable to assigning a HR employee or team to the task of monitoring the whole organisations blogging activities. 

One thing that differentiates Yahoo! from Sun Microsystems in terms of its blogging is that Yahoo uses a corporate blogging tool as well as encouraging the Sun style bottom up blogging style. Yahoo! Search Blog is a corporate blog in that it is published by the company about what the company wants to discuss in order to build a stronger relationship with Yahoo!’s customers (Wackå, 2004). However, an interesting development in Yahoo!’s corporate blog is the number of people allowed to blog and the range of topics on which they are allowed to blog. Generally, corporate blogs resemble General Motors’ with fixed topics and only a few selected people permitted to post entries (Rubel, 2005). 

This limitation would be expected to restrict the number of voices heard and therefore the amount of learning that can occur, which is not beneficial to the use of blogging as a tool for learning. Yahoo! has countered this by opening access to the corporate blog to all employees. This means that any employee can post under their own name in the corporate blog, therefore bringing the expertise of their positions to the public and industry eye and promoting learning inside and outside the organisation. 

Both of these companies use blogging as a means of learning. Using blogging as a tool for learning has both benefits and limitations, but the opportunity to grow and develop an organisation by drawing knowledge into the organisation should not be taken lightly. 

References 

Cassion-Tansiri, J., 2007, ‘Web 2.0, Meet HR’, Incentive, vol. 181, no. 2, p. 8. 

Hanson, J., Miller, L. & Splawski, R., 2007, Blogging Done Right: Sun Microsystems, BCOM 522: Corporate Blogs, accessed 23 September 2007, http://bcom522.blogspot.com/2007/03/sun-microsystems-corporate-blogs-case.html.

Rubel, S., 2005, Bottom Up vs. Top Down Blogging, Micro Persuasion: Steve Rubel on how technology is revolutionizing media and marketing, accessed 7 September 2007, http://www.micropersuasion.com/2005/03/bottom_up_vs_to.html.

Sun News – Sun Blogs, 2004, accessed 23 September 2007, http://www.sun.com/aboutsun/media/blogs/policy.html. 

Walsh, A., 2005, Competency Based Training, TAFE NSW, accessed 24 September 2007, http://www.icvet.tafensw.edu.au/resources/competency_based.htm.  

Wackå, F., 2004, Corporate Blog – A short definition, Your Guide to Corporate Blogging, accessed 23 September 2007, http://www.corporateblogging.info/2004/06/corporate-blog-short-definition.asp.