The November issue of the Harvard Business Review has an article titled, "If You Want to Lead, Blog."  The article is by Jonathan Schwartz, the COO/President of Sun Microsystems, who has his own highly rated blog found here.  You must be an HBR subscriber to read the article so we have some of the highlights here (thanks to John Moore):

Many Sun Microsystems top-level execs blog. In their blogs, they talk about business strategy, company values, products in the pipeline, successes, and failures. Sun realizes this may seem risky but Sun believes it is riskier not to blog. Sun wants to be a part of the conversation that will go on whether or not Sun participates.

By participating in the blogging conversation, Sun is able to communicate its corporate culture to not only customers but also to current and future Sun employees.

Here are Johnathan’s key recommendations:

• use an honest, humorous, and open voice
• show respect for the audience
• don’t treat blogging like advertising
• don’t micromange … communicate the guidelines and let company bloggers loose
• revisit and modify your company’s blogging policy if need be
• listen to feedback
• respond to legitimate feedback
• “Authenticity is paramount.”