GM Fastlane’s Bob Lutz: Keeping the faith on blogging
OK, here’s a blog post about a blog post, about a…well, you get it.
The issue: Bob Lutz is the vice chairman of product development at General Motors and the chairman of GM North America. He is also one of the most prominent Fortune 500 bloggers, as he’s the leader of several contributors to GM’s Fastlane blog. Apparently he was really busy during the past couple of weeks. He didn’t post anything on his blog during that time, and some bloggers who keep a close eye on GM thought this was the beginning of the end of Lutz’s interest in blogging.
The squeaky wheel got the grease: Lutz took a couple of minutes away from his day job at one of the world’s largest auto manufacturers — dealing with global supply chains, Al Gore’s global warming alarms, and $3.50 a gallon gas prices — to remind his friendly blogosphere colleagues that, in fact, he is not bored with blogging. He’s just been tending to a few more urgent and important issues.
Now, I’m as big an advocate for new PR techniques as other folks on the social media circuit, but these kind of situations can make some execs say, “Hey, I don’t need the aggravation of blogging.” Part of me says the blogosphere can seem like the tail wagging the dog, that it’s excellent in some cases and a major distraction for many others.
Lutz’s retort was wrapped in a larger blog post, so kudos for the way he handled it. And when I get a bit cynical about the usefulness of blogs for corporations, I give Shel Holtz a read to level set on the issue. His writing about the Lutz situation inspired this post today.
My mom said, if you don’t have anything nice to say, then don’t say anything. In the world of social media, I’ve taken that little maxim just one step further: If you don’t have anything worthwhile to say, listen for a while. I mean, the blogosphere shouldn’t penalize those who put quality before quantity and avoid posting just for the sake of saying something. That “something” too often ends up “nothing,” anyway.
Dozens of times I think, I’d like to post about this or that, but usually a child’s homework, a soccer game, work, driving kids around, basketball practice, workout, or a rare quiet dinner with my wife takes precedence. It’s just that simple, and because of those priorities, it seems odd that a blogger — especially one like Bob Lutz — should take flak. So again, Shel is right in this case: The unfortunate solution is to just get thicker skin and keep the faith.
In the end, there are more positives than negatives to the pursuit of blogging. Just ask Bob Lutz.
Tags: Fastlane, General Motors
This entry was posted on Thursday, May 24th, 2007 at 9:21 am and is filed under blogging, corporate blogs.You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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September 25th, 2007 at 4:11 pm
It appears clear to me that GM and staff have nothing more to do than decide how to further their retirement, ensure that their families are taken care of, as well as ensuring that there is adequate cash in the bank for personal reasons. Lets face it. Years back, Toyota came to GM (known as the big three) with plans to partner and develop a hybrid Car. What did GM say? They said we don’t need no stinkn hybrid car, as well as the thought of partnering with Japanese was a unheard of thought. Lutz even commented that he thought it was a publicity stunt. Well years forward, I believe the GM went to Toyota to try and establish a partnership and Toyota bowed their head and smiled, No Thankyou! And who is # 1 today, and leading the pack, Toyota….What does that tell you, old management, old thoughts, old ideas, and ideas that don’t work…. Want validation of that? GM is not the Big Three, they are known as the TINY Two….that’s because there’s not much left of the boastful, spendful, gas guzzling execs that failed to listen to the people until know, trying feverishly to catch up to the current requirements of everyone’s wish list, which is ECONOMY. Gas is over 3.00 a gallon, who the heck needs SUV, Big trucks,,,etc…. most of the trucks I see on the road do not carry any cargo…. Are the owners that stupid to be riding around getting 12 mpg and paying 60-80 dollars a tankful? I love power, don’t get me wrong, but when it comes to how many dollars you save or spend, Power doesn’t mean squat.
So I gave up my mercedes 2 years ago, a stylish comfortable V8 for a toyota prius, and everyone kind laughed and said why? Today with a big smile on my face as to the savings that I have realized, 500.00 a month x 12 months or 6k a year or 12k for 2 years, having access to the carpool lane, Who’s laughing now, and who’s had the last laugh? Everyday, I see gas guzzlers,
muscle cars, diesels, and just flat out gas wasters.
While GM peddles in the background hoping to catch up, I heard they are coming out with mini-cars about 10k each, with 1.2 liter engines….what a joke! Trust factor is gone, why buy american when you can buy quality Japanese? or Korean? or….on and on.
What happened was the Good ole Boy’s took in all the profits from the American Public and squandered the profits on crap automobiles, personal pensions, and product that the american public never eneded up buying….. You see, GM is no more, Lutz know that, he really doesn’t care, cause he’s holding the purse strings….. Anyway, if or when GM’s goes belly up, he’ll just throw up his hands and smile and step down… With the current kaos with UAW striking,,,, that not only add insult to the american people, but even distances the public out more as a whole. Go ahead and do that 75.00 per hour auto work, Toyota and other will step in a grap market share and then you 33 years as a worker pension will be erased, cause Lutz, will have made off with loot! Your pension, your saving, your sweat and tears….. GM can be saved, but by only having Toyota and Nissan and Honda, step in and clean out all the white haired
old men that are curently running with old ideas, old management and most of all old Good Old Boys business as usual.
Watch and see, GM will whiter away, and Toyota may come up and ask, GM do you need help? GM like a drooling dog, says yes,
Toyota smiles, and say, Okay. good! tosses GM a dime and says, here’s a quarter, go make a phone call, then walks away!!!!!