Most of the talk and information relating to Business Blogs centres on external blogs: those which focus outside of the company and are designed to communicate out to customers and prospects. However, arguably the type of Business Blog which currently has the largest number of users is the internal blog, designed to improve communications within an organisation.

Using blogs for internal communications is an important and growing area, and a key use of internal blogs within this is for “Team Blogs”. Good communication and interaction is part and parcel of a successful team, whatever its focus, particularly when the teams members may not know each other or have the opportunity to frequently meet face to face. Happily, a blog offers the chance to develop the interrelationships and the communications no matter where the team members are based.

Teams are brought together for a myriad of different reasons but they do have in common five key requirements at a communication and information level:

1. Good communications between its members;
2. The ability for all members to participate fully;
3. Easy collaboration across the team;
4. Dissemination of the results;
5. A permanent record of the information, results and conclusions.

Internal Blogs are able to help in each of these key team areas and, by being able to be set up quickly and easily, can be up and running as soon as the team requires it.

The benefits that a team blog offers

These key elements for a team to work well together are all areas where a blog can help. In particular, a “many to many” method of communication is important to ensure the dissemination of information and allow all members of the team to participate and contribute equally.

Internal Business Blogs can offer the following benefits to teams, whatever their goals:

• Group communication: it is critical that all team members know what is going on and are able to communicate in an open yet trackable environment. A blog can provide such an environment and involve everybody.
• Sharing information: for successful team interaction, it is important that the information is easily shared between all parties and can be added to by all. A blog and RSS will allow information to be spread quickly and safely which offering a non technical route to adding content;
• Discussion Area: discussion and sharing of ideas will help to develop the team and its aims. It is important that all team members can participate by seeing others’ ideas and being able to add their own. Using blog categories, independent ideas and streams can be discussed and developed in tandem.
• Information Resource: there will be key documents that everybody needs to have access to - a blog is an ideal way to store this information and make it available to everyone. This may take the form of a project journal in the case of project teams.
• Project Resource: information and knowledge which is accumulated during the course of a project is so often then lost to the rest of the company once the project is completed. A blog will provide and ongoing repository for this which will benefit all going forward.

By having all of these elements in place, the foundations are there to allow the team to move forward and concentrate on its specific aims.

Types of internal teams that can benefit

So, what sort of teams could benefit most from the opportunities and communication abilities afforded by a team blog? Some of the main ones that are worth mentioning are:

• Ad hoc teams: teams that have come together to run short-term projects need to have a central resource which is quick to set up and easy to use;
• Project Teams: a blog can be used to record and communicate the progress of a project (ie. a project journal) as well as allow easy sharing of information between the project team members;
• Product Development Team Blogs: one of the key areas in many companies and the ones which understand the process best will open the blog up to external participants and create a team of product evangelists in the process;
• Function specific teams (such as HR managers from across the organisation): a blog could be used to share experiences from all areas in the organisation as well as a place to develop and debate ideas which could then be used as the definitive resource to communicate them to all relevant managers;
• Cross functional teams: teams bringing together members from different functions are looking for input from all these areas to create real value in the team. A blog allows everyone to participate and makes sure that brainstorming ideas can be given the chance to be developed fully;
• Department Teams: use the blog as a central resource for a department which might include sharing competitor information, industry news, templates, best practice etc.
• Quality Circles: group of workers from the same functional area who meet regularly to examine and look for solutions to work related problems and opportunities for improvement.

Of course, the widest team of all is the company as a whole which itself could benefit from using a Business Blog as an internal communications tool, perhaps in addition to any intranet that may already be in place.

With internal teams being formed ever more frequently for specific projects, the possibility of not making full use of the members of the team or not retaining the knowledge gathered at the end of the project is an increasingly worrying possibility. However, by using an internal team blog, you can easily minimise these possible downsides and let the team get on with the job for which they were brought together.

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