The Chief Executive Blog
three years ago, the colleague and i were trying to convince the boss of the usefulness of a company blog.
he resisted it, even as we gave a thousand and one reasons on how the blog could benefit our direct customers and even bring us more clients.
unperturbed, the colleague and i started one ourselves, writing about what happens at the press conferences we attend and how management of the various companies treat us.
it was a hit, resulting in several tip-offs of suspicious activities by one company.
i brought those allegations up to the CEO of the company, did the interview and wrote the story.
about a year down the road, the boss was finally convinced (by his mentor) that a blog could do our business wonders and our new Investor Central blog was born.
i wrote and produced another entry for that site today, entitled "The CEO Blog", inspired by venture capitalist Fred Wilson's blog - A VC.
an excerpt from it:
"Companies (even those with corporate communication departments) often whine about not being able to reach out to their investors, which usually comes about after their shares don't do too well and interest in their stocks wane.
They then hire big name investor relations agencies and hold some glitzy events to try to endear themselves to the public.
Considering how much capital goes into such reactive efforts, it would really be way cheaper and proactive to START A BLOG.
Here's why:
One of investors' main gripes is that management is always inaccessible. This means they can only rely on things like media reports and the occasional Q&A session (which, by the way, is not done by most companies) for their information. Even then, management still just comes across as a group of boardroom old farts who are too uppity to speak to the common people, and not living, breathing human beings like you and me."
of course, i wrote the above article with singapore-listed companies in mind.
but really, are things any more different in other parts of the world?
on a lighter note, the Investor Central team went for our first drinks session after work yesterday.
we had a rather tiring and busy weekend, talking to existing and potential clients at the Asia Traders' and Investors' Conference, so yesterday's chill-out session was very much appreciated by the lot of us.
i now understand how important bonding outside of the workplace is.
i've also learnt not to chug down the remainder of my pint. =P
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