BBC Blogging Policy

One of the most powerful examples we had of the use of wikis at the BBC was when we used one to pull together a policy for BBC staff who had blogs.

Having identified staff bloggers using our social networking tool Connect Nick Reynolds, a colleague from Editorial Policy created a wiki page, wrote a “straw man” policy and e-mailed the URL of the page to the bloggers. They then piled in changing, editing, improving and discussing their changes until they eventually arrived at a position of consensus and the wiki page stopped changing. At this point the “document” was taken to the formal organisation where it was further discussed and developed. This process has just been completed and the policy made public.

The power of doing things this way is clear when those affected by policy are able to get directly, and very efficiently, involved in its creation and as such are much more likely to support and adhere to its guidelines.

Comments

[Roger Wilmut]

Thanks for this one, Euan - now I can keep my weblog compliant with BBC regulations - and I always comply with BBC regulations (when convenient).

[Franka Philip]

These are quite helpful for us who blog outside of the BBC. I'm still stunned though by the number of BBC staffers including journalists who produce programmes don't have a clue about what blogging is and the role it has taken in today's global discussion.
It makes you wonder how many of them actually understood half of what Mark Thompson was talking about when Creative Futures was launched!

[Euan]

Yep and as you will see from then post above you are not the only one to be stunned.