Wednesday, November 5, 2008

Hard news from inside the company

In these hard economic times, many companies are forced to cut back. However, many of them are looking to break the news in a more personal way by blogging them. The New York Times ran a story today. Many companies are taking their time to write their story down, as many employees take time to use Twitter and blogs to share their thoughts.

One example is Cake Financial:

Steven A. Carpenter, chief executive of a two-year-old investing advice site, Cake Financial, had blogged about the company’s new weekly video show and its move to new quarters in San Francisco. On Oct. 19, the night before he laid off 30 percent of his employees, he wrote a post about the cutbacks.

The next morning, he met with the six employees he was letting go. Afterward, he clicked the button to publish his post about the “extremely sad day for all of us who have to say goodbye to a group of great people.”

“Our whole company is built on the idea of transparency in investing, so that was a reason why it was important for us to do it,” Mr. Carpenter said in an interview. He also wanted employees and outsiders to know they were each getting the same version of the story. “It let them know what we were up to in real time, so they didn’t get nervous about what was going on,” he said.

No comments: