For the second time in a week I have had the same conversation with some Corporate marketeers. They say they understand the opportunity and power of blogging but they will not be doing it. They give two reasons:

• Fear of negative comments (or a 'Ratner Moment')
• Unclear of the ROI benefits

Having served my time in Corporate Marketing I can fully relate to the first one. When you have had to face a class action suit because a senior manager has said something 'off-script' you can get very nervous of uncontrolled comments from within a company. I have spent many hours with the finance, legal and PR teams in the past preparing scripts for senior management to use at earnings announcements or press interviews. An off-the-cuff remark or response to a questions can have a massive impact as Gerald Ratner and his company - and the shareholders - found to their cost. Many in the blogging community, quite rightly, champion transparency and openness. The converse is the risk of legal liability. Can a company avoid legal liability by putting a 'not company view but personal' on every blog post and distance themselves?

The other comment has been - 'looked at it but too much effort compared to the benefits'. Without understanding the company ROI model it is not easy to comment but from the conversation it seems they are looking at having people 'police' the blogs and issue and maintain policies and that are just too much management time and effort compared to the 'small number of people blogging'. But have they considered the advantage of 'early warning' it can give on issues consumers maybe having about their products or services? When a crisis hits every hour is important. As the saying goes 'A stitch in time saves nine'. Blogs can help. Companies spend vast money on market research. Blogs are a great two-way communications tool that can be used to get feedback on all sorts of areas including operations and product development. Blogs can also be used to supplement call centres which increasingly seem to be areas of mounting frustration for customers.  Have they factored is these areas to their ROI models? Maybe they would do well to read Naked Conversations by Robert Scoble and Shel Israel to see how some organisations have been using blogs.

Corporates who have looked and made a decision to not go ahead will do well to keep monitoring the situation. Blogs are here to stay and will keep growing in importance.