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Monday, September 22, 2008

Marriott blogs Pakistan devastation

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The power of a corporate blog is nowhere more evident than on “Marriott on the Move,” the blog from the hotel chain’s CEO, Bill Marriott.

Responding to the horrific terrorist act that levelled the Marriott hotel in Islamabad, Pakistan, the company posted a statement on Saturday, the day of the attack, followed in less than five hours by Bill Marriott’s personal post titled, “This Senseless Tragedy…”

In the post, Marriott notes that most of the bombing victims were hotel employees. He gives special attention to security staff who died while examining the suicide bomber’s truck. “These guys were defending the lives of hotel guests and their fellow co-workers,” he writes. “They were killed in the line of their duty.”

The post does not include the usual audio file. Marriott records his posts into a digital recorder, which his communication staff transcribes for the blog. Visitors can choose to read or listen. The absence of the audio file for this particular post is curious. If ever people—especially employees—would want to hear the voice of their CEO, this is the time. I have no doubt, however, that the words are Marriott’s—communicators preparing a statement would never use informal language like “these guys.”

Without a blog, the organization would have been restricted to traditional channels for expressing itself. These channels don’t come close to providing a leader with the ability to convey his own reaction, or to providing stakeholders a channel through which to react. Nearly 170 comments append the post as of right now, most offering condolences and expressing outrage and shock. There are comments from people who have been injured in other attacks on hotels, from former employees, and from loyal customers. Some address Marriott’s business specifically, such as these:

“I am confident that you will make the right decisions to take care of the Marriott associates’ families in the tragedy and to keep the trust of your loyal customers to continue to want to stay at Marriotts.”

“Mr. Marriott: As a Silver level member and a regular traveling business customer, I will now change my stays from Hilton to Marriott for the rest of this year. I can’t help but see that the militant Islamic forces target your establishment due to its Christian heritage. I appreciate your candor and certainly, your hotel staff’s service.”

“When I saw this horrid news, I went straight to the Marriott website to see how the company would be handling it. I appreciate your directness, and extend my deepest condolences to the families of those who lost their lives. I for one would feel perfectly safe at one of your hotels, despite this tragedy.”

In the face of such horrible devastation and loss of life, the Marriott blog—which already had an established voice a leadership—gave the company…

• The means to reach out to customers and employees with an authentic expression of grief
• The ability to react almost instantly
• An opportunity for stakeholders to offer their own thoughts, serving as a form of catharsis
• The ability for Bill Marriott to assume leadership during the crisis

There are plenty of reasons for organizations to maintain a corporate blog, from search engine optimization to addressing business issues head-on. But if Marriott’s experience isn’t enough to make other organizations consider adopting a corporate blog, nothing is.