workshop on blogging for management academics

Very few management professors read blogs about management, leadership, strategy or organizations.

I have no hard data, no scientific survey, to support this claim, but I know it’s true.

As I’ve talked with colleagues over the last two years about this blog, about other blogs that I learn from, about blogs as a communication medium, and about blogging as a communication and intellectual practice, I’ve heard everything from dismissal to skepticism to distracted curiosity– but almost nothing about how blogs have been contributing to their worlds as scholars.

Comments about blogs that I’ve heard from management professors run the gamut:

1. “I can’t be bothered.”
2. “I have no time.”
3. “How would blogs be useful to me?”
4. “Are there any interesting blogs out there?”
5. “I don’t even know how to begin.”

Whether you are a professional “management scholar’ like a PhD or a semi-pro management scholar like an E/MBA student or a reflective organization member, there are some compelling reasons to read blogs about management, leadership and organizations.

I personally think that blogs as a medium and blogging as a tool are an important heretofore missing link between science and practice. But before I set out to evangelize (and in anticipation of the Workshop on Blogging for Management Scholars that colleagues and I are offering at the Academy of Management professional meeting), let me share the first draft of my argument with you readers (aka the already converted):

Here’s my first draft:

5 Reasons why Management Professors should be reading blogs

1. To learn how their colleagues are linking management theories with real-world issues

2. To see how real world issues can be understood better when our perspectives on them are informed by good theory

3. To see what issues are captivating the attention and energy of people in profit and non-profit organizations

4. To listen to the conversations about these issues and learn what really matters to people in organizations, and perhaps most importantly

5. To learn how to engage managers in thoughtful conversations about organizations and management, so that we can be more effective at influencing how managers think, so we can help them make organizations ‘better’.

Are there any reasons you’d challenge? Add? Augment?

If you had to get up in front of 100 management professors and tell them why they should be reading blogs, what would you say?

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