Corporate Fear.

Fear of being different. Fear of telling your boss your ideas. Fear of speaking up in meetings. Fear of going up to someone you don’t know and introducing yourself. Fear of doing something that might destroy your career.

Fear of weblogging.

It’s time we get over our fears.

I meet a lot of people around the industry. Almost everytime I meet someone, I ask them “do you have a weblog?” That’s my way of saying “I like you and want to hear more of your ideas.” Even deeper: I want a permanent relationship with you (and not of the sexual kind, either).

I’ve asked this question of people at Apple. Google. IBM. eBay. Real Networks. Cisco. Intel. HP. Amazon. And, yes, here at Microsoft.

Too often the answer is “I couldn’t do that.”

“Why not?” I ask.

“Because I might get fired,” is often the answer. I hate that answer. It’s an example of corporate fear. An artifact of a management system that doesn’t empower its employees to act on behalf of customers.

I find this fear disturbing. Imagine being a flight attendant with this kind of fear. “Sorry, I can’t talk to the passengers in this plane today cause I might get fired.”

Scobleizer: Microsoft Geek Blogger: 10/19/2004