Sun CEO Among the Few Chiefs Who Blog

Sun Microsystems CEO and President Jonathan Schwartz poses for a portrait in the company's headquarters in Menlo Park, Calif. on Thursday, Sept. 7, 2006. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez, File) (Marcio Jose Sanchez - AP)

The blog allows the Swiss-born executive to write directly to hard-core motorheads around the world. More than 900 readers asked Lutz, who oversees product development, to revive the Chevrolet Camaro. GM said last month it would develop a new Camaro based on a concept car unveiled in January.

"I'm not going to tell you that Camaro is happening because the blogosphere demanded it; that would be disingenuous," Lutz wrote. "But I will tell you that the enthusiasm shown for Camaro in this forum is a shining and prominent example of the passion that exists for this automobile."

More than 3,000 of Sun's 30,000 employees maintain blogs on Sun's sites, a practice Schwartz says helps Sun attract workers with specialized interests. Schwartz says the most esoteric blog entries _ discussions on chip multithreading or Sun's Java programming language _ attract passionate responses.

"If you really care about Java in the medical device community, the fact that there's a Sun blog where someone focuses on that suggests there's someone at Sun you can relate to," Schwartz said. "There may be three people at Sun who care deeply about this stuff, and you can go hang out with them if you come work for us."

Karen Christensen, CEO of Great Barrington, Mass.-based Berkshire Publishing Group, usually updates her blog weekly but spent a half-hour a day blogging during a recent visit to China.

She says the blog gives colleagues a sense of her long hours and concern for details, making book reviewers _ her harshest critics _ consider her work in new light.

"I had a reviewer write to me and say, 'I never knew there were real people behind this,'" Christensen said.

The publishing industry is rife with bloggers, including Macmillan Publishers Ltd. CEO Richard Charkin, whose "Chark Blog" includes slice-of-life entries from the British executive. Consultants say blogging suits natural-born writers _ but it's tough for other executives.

"Ultimately, a good blog is good writing. Most CEOs are not good writers," said Debbie Weil, a Washington-based consultant and author of "The Corporate Blogging Book." "The packaging and controlling of the corporate message has always been done for them, so often they don't realize that writing well is hard work and takes time and thought and practice."

Blogs can also become a publicity land mine.

Nondisclosure agreements and financial regulations can turn the most literary CEOs into scribes who post rehashed speeches or press releases. CEOs may also lack the thick skin required for blogging, said David Taylor, an executive consultant in Boulder, Colo.

"One of the inevitabilities of blogging is that you get critical, hostile responses from trolls _ people who post provocative things just to inflame a reaction," Taylor said.