Guide to Managing Technology and Process - Case Study 2

Blogging and Learning at the BBC

Background

The BBC is a UK public corporation which employs some 24,000 people in 43 countries. Its reputation for the integrity and impartiality of its coverage has made it the world’s most respected broadcaster. Traditionally best known for its television and radio programmes, the BBC was an early and successful adopter of new Internet-based media and has an innovative and well-established website. In 2007/8 the website attracted weekly users averaging over 33 million globally.

This case study illustrates how blogs are used in the learning and development of the BBC’s employees, particularly those employed in delivering and supporting broadcast journalism.

Benefits

  • Vast numbers of BBC staff produce a blog and internal surveys suggest that one-third of all intranet users read at least one of the internal blogs on a regular basis.
  • These blogs are diverse in nature. Their development has been encouraged and the ‘traditional’ or ‘orthodox’ blogs tend to offer readers insight on issues of editorial broadcasting, technical issues or organisational change issues.
  • A particular popular blog is the one produced by Richard Sambrook, Director of Global News at the BBC. His blog attracts about 2,500 unique users a month (these figures were higher when the blog was first introduced and it had some novelty value). It also attracts a small and knowledgeable cohort of regular contributors to discussions, and he frequently receives positive informal feedback from junior colleagues. He has found it a valuable delivery channel for ideas.
  • A more recent development is the Creativity Network. This is the most sophisticated blog technically, is multi-author and contains facilities where contributors can draw others’ attention to interesting developments, offer links to relevant sites and – most importantly – upload their own clips or contributions.

Challenges

  • There are occasions when the needs of confidentiality and discretion must prevail: “as a senior manager you only put up what you feel you should put up on the web”.
  • Difficulties in assessing the value of blogs in the learning process. Traditional evaluation practice is based on top-down interventions, not the bottom-up or the peer-to-peer networks that are emerging.

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