When we got going with blogs inside the BBC we had seemingly endless conversations about whether bloggers should be able to use their own designs and add their own plugins etc. I was all for it, believing that differentiation makes it easier to navigate not harder. Others felt that it was important to make them all look the same in the name of some ideal of consistency.
Reminds me of the analogy I used to use. Networks of blogs linking to each other become like old villages. No one enforces an overall architectural style or signage, but we find them easy to navigate because there are well worn paths between the church and the pub for instance. We feel comfortable with the human scale and quickly learn our way around. Over controlled shiny corporate blogs, and most intranets, are like Milton Keynes. Efficient on the face of it, but bewildering if you don’t understand the system. I get lost in Milton Keynes every time I go there even with a sat nav!
I occasionally hear of marketing or internal comms teams trying to assert control over individual bloggers who have “found their voices” and in some cases attracted significant audiences. In doing so they risk compromising the very qualities that made the bloggers trusted, successful and, most importantly, discoverable in the first place.
What are they so afraid of? That we won’t be able to work out that the blogger works for them? That we will think that they have lost control and staff are running amok?
We love differentiation. Why not embrace it and try to get good at it?
The Obvious? 