According to a statement that she will submit to a House Committee investigating whether HP broke any laws (although, I think that point is moot), she assumed that Bob Wayman gave the authorisation for “whatever work was undertaken”. Yet, according to Tom Perkins account of what happened, it was Dunn who instigated the search for the source of the leak.And right now, Reuters is reporting that HP’s general counsel has resigned.

Things are going to get messy as this unfolds…

Many businesses don’t want to be the leader in new and different ways of corporate communication.  They like to be copycat for the things that work.  Until companies begin to embrace blogs as an online marketing tool and a way to communicate with clients and customers, they will tread lightly, making sure that the water is warm before jumping in the pool.

When it comes to corporate communications, everything that is released has to be very much “on message”, and fit with the corporate image and to a certain extent I can understand that. There have to be limits on what can be posted on corporate blogs – can you imagine how one of Patricia Dunn’s blog posts from the last few weeks would have read:

Dear Readers, what a crap week. It’s Sunday, and I’ve been called into the office. Looks like those fresh-baked croissants will have to wait. Things don’t look too good at all. Mark is trying to be nice, but he hasn’t looked me in the eye for a week now, and George’s wife dropped in to say I was off their Christmas card list this year. On a brighter note, the share price didn’t take a hit, so I still might be able to bluff my way through this  - the chairmanship is looking a bit shaky though…

PS – I think I might have to close Comments on the blog for now, because Tom Perkins won’t stop posting and it’s starting to piss me off…

OK - a lighthearted example, but you get what I mean. For corporate blogging to work there has to be a balance – the message to be delivered has to be understood by the people doing the blogging. They have to learn to “blog smart”.

The CIOs can lead this by blogging internally for their customers and colleagues - running an IT function for company touches pretty much all business areas; there’s alot to talk about. Enable comments, and get the conversations going; encourage your peers to start blogging internally too. Once a dialogue starts internally it becomes easier to take that platform for conversations outside. Blogging isn’t a one way street, and I think that’s what some business leaders don’t grasp (or maybe that’s what they’re afraid of).

What I find exasperating, though, is this attitude (from the article that Jim links to):

But not everyone is convinced by the blogging hype. Nic Evans, European IT director at Key Equipment Finance, said: “Personally I think corporate blogs are at best just a ‘jeans day’ version of more formal communications and at worst more benefit for the ego of the blogger than their potential audience.”

Dude, you’re missing the point - if I’m taking the time to read your blog, it’s because I care about your product/service which I’m spending my money/time on. I don’t want slick, polished marketing pap – I’ll read your homepage for that.

I think I have the answer – there’s world of difference between the CEO of a social-networking site apologising for pissing his user base off with a software release, and the CEO of a publically-traded mutlinational blogging about how it feels to see his chairwoman exposed to such jaw-dropping allegations. My guess is that HP’s legal counsel is advising (ordering?) all HP board members to stay very quiet right now, and that this was as far the CEO could go under the current circumstances.

I’m a big fan of Robert Scoble’s magnificent efforts to get the world’s companies and company bosses to open up, but this is not the right moment for the HP board to discover blogging.