Well, I took the bull by the horns and did it – I sent the following email to the new CEO of Corrpro Companies, Inc.:

Dear Mr. Larkin,

As a seven-year employee of Corrpro and a stockholder, I was very pleased to see yesterday’s announcement of your appointment of President and CEO.

I know you must be a very busy man, and normally I would not be trying to send an email to someone in your position, but I have a small suggestion for you that might help you in your new leadership role, and benefit both employees and stockholders.

In many leading companies today, the President maintains a public blog that serves as a forum to outline his or her business philosophies, strategies, goals, and progress towards them. With the inclusion of comments, it can also serve as a dialogue between the President and the interested public. It is, of course, a double-edged sword. Although you would have the opportunity to quickly disseminate your ideas, you would also be exposed to criticism and to the risk of inadvertently exposing information valuable to competitors. It is, in essence, a PR strategy. A quick Google search would reveal many of the pros and cons of the CEO blog. One I thought was astute mentioned five critical elements of a successful blog: candor, urgency, timeliness, pithiness and controversy.

A blog may or may not serve your purposes. I know it would help me, because I rarely, if ever, get to hear the opinions of the top leadership of my employer without it being filtered through multiple layers of middle management. Writing on a regular basis is a skill that not many people have, although it can be developed. However, it is a tool that you might find valuable. I myself have maintained a blog for over a year now, and although it can be a struggle to post just twice a week, I have found the experience to be clarifying and even cathartic.

Highest Regards,

Greg R. Perry
San Diego

I’ve never done anything like this before. I suppose it’s risky, maybe even more risky to publish the email, but I don’t feel bad about it. I really would love to read a blog by our new president and CEO.

UPDATE: I got a response in just under an hour. I won’t publish it without permission, but it was interested and positive. I’m impressed.

Posted by Greg in My Website, Posts About Me

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