Step up to the mike

While it’s been up for a while now, I thought I should point you to this piece on user-generated content and open source software by Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz. Apart from the piece itself, it is notable how skilled Schwartz is in describing his vision of the future - and of course what role Sun will play in that future. The post currently has 70 comments and quite a few echo this one:

I wish there were more CEOs that understood their industry and business as well as you do, and could express it so well

Being CEO may equate to winning a popularity contest (or one in rhetorics), but I think it is out of question that someone like Schwartz gains immensely from their blogging. When you think about it, executives, senior government officials, celebrities and so forth live in a communicative bubble from which they can only get into contact with us through mediators (the traditional media). Many misconceptions about the greed and arrogance of the powerful come from what is interpreted as their aloofness - the lack of direct interaction they have with us.

Of course one needs communicative competence to begin with, otherwise a blog will hardly do any good. But I think a CEO who lacks people skills won’t last too long anyway - after all, that job is largely about people and those people will expect you to both have a plan and be able to verbalize it clearly and concisely.