Why it’s ridiculous to argue about ghost blogging

It seems like “ghost blogging” — the practice of penning posts for others —  is always under attack.

Jon Buscall wrote a fine piece about it recently as did Mitch Joel.

Philosophically I agree with them.  In a pure and perfect world executives should write their own copy.

But practically speaking I don’t agree.

Here’s why.

• It’s not a pure and perfect world. Ghost writing is going to happen and it always has.  Wishing and pontificating will not make it different.  So why not at least do it well?
• Most executives don’t have the time or ability to blog consistently and effectively. So if they don’t get help, it just won’t happen. Isn’t it a good idea to help bring their ideas to life?
• Personal connection and “community” is probably less important to somebody at the “rockstar” level of chairman.  I know this will get hollers from the crowd that community is “everybody’s business” — and to some extent that is true, but again, I’m being practical. Most CEO’s are not being compensated to build community through a blog.
• The chairman does not pen his own speech, yet nobody questions that they own it. They don’t write the shareholder’s letter in the annual report, yet this is deemed as authentic. Do you think Former GE Chairman Jack Welch sat there and pecked out his own book? And yet it is seen as his.

So why do so many people seem to want to put blogs in a different class of writing?  In the world of corporate communications it could be argued that blogs are even less important and critical than a major speech or a document being submitted to the SEC.   Why are people on a quixotic mission to fight against reality?

Here’s a better solution. Establish guidelines to have an effective ghost blog in an effective and ethical way.  A few months ago there was a debate on this topic on {grow} that resulted in some guidelines for ghost blogging:

• The host executive should provide general ideas for a ghosted blog post and a few bullet points expressing key thoughts for the writer to work from. Obviously the writer needs to spend as much time as possible with the host to get a feel for their language and opinions.
• The executive should approve every blog post before publishing under their name.
• Content aimed at a personalized connection – such as responses in a blog comment section – ideally should be authored by the executive, not the ghost writer.
• Be sure there is an approval process in place that can handle the need for flexibility, responsiveness and the opportunistic tendencies of the social web.
• Guidelines of the corporate blog process and a list of blog contributors could be contained in an “about” section.

Do these make sense?