The Hindu Business Line : Top executives give in to lure of blogs

Top executives of some leading Indian companies, including Infosys Technologies, Rediff and Info Edge (known for Naukri.com), are giving in to the lure of blogs.

They dwell on matters as diverse as personal impressions at the World Economic Forum (WEF) to expressing views on the Prime Minister’s comments on CEO salary curbs.

Importantly, they see this as a valuable tool to get across to clients and employees quickly.

“Blogging is seen more as a communication tool of youngsters than the older generation…I have been blogging on special events such as WEF, but most of the times it has been internal (Infosys intranet). In fact, I soon plan to start writing every week on technology – a subject that I am passionate about,” Infosys CEO and Managing Director, Mr S. Gopalakrishnan, told Business Line.

Infosys set up the Infosys blog ( www.infosysblogs.com/thinkflat) in an attempt to create a forum where it could share its thoughts with clients and employees.

The blog was launched with a post of co-Chairman Mr Nandan Nilekani, followed by that of Mr Stephen Pratt, who heads Infosys Consulting Inc.

A spokesperson said: “Contributors include Infosys board members, heads of business units and other senior executives in the company. This allows us to have a two-way dialogue with our clients instead of simply publishing our perspectives on topics of interest.”

While a search for further posts by Mr Nilekani on that forum proved futile, Business Line discovered that he is an annual blogger at the WEF.

Mr Gopalakrishnan, however, admitted that blogs at the top executive level are yet to take off in a big way in India.

“It is and will always remain a challenge for top-level executives to take to regular blogging, as it becomes difficult to separate the views of the individual from that of the company. Top executives, therefore, need to be extremely careful while blogging.”

Agrees Rediff founder and CEO, Mr Ajit Balakrishnan, who points out that while writing blogs can be “relaxing,” CEOs of listed companies need to guard against expressing opinion on outlook about the company or even the industry in their blogs and should rather stick to neutral themes.

In one of his recent blogs, titled ‘Innovation Tips from the Beatles,’ Mr Balakrishnan dwells on how “two worlds need to collide for innovation to happen,” and how the “socio-economic system in which this collision happens has a role in it as well.”

Among the handful of Indian CEOs who are hooked onto blogging is Naukri.com CEO Mr Sanjeev Bikhchandani.

“I have been blogging for the last 3-4 months, and I have thoroughly enjoyed it. There is no set theme and my blogs have varied from how I got hooked onto blogging to the issue of reservations and even the PM’s recent comments on CEO salaries.”

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