Kodak's Subtle Use of Blogging

Posted by: Heather Green on August 14

Sometimes corporate blogging can feel so forced. Unless someone at a company has a passion or a CEO or senior exec uses the blog to slip the leash of corporate communicatons, a blog created by a company can sometimes feel like a forgotten child. But it feels like to me Kodak has hit on a fresh and clever way to approach blogging.

The company launched the first blog, A Thousand Words, about a year ago. The idea, explains David Kassnoff, a manager of corporate communications, was to “give a human face to an iconic company that was often viewed as a “film company,” even though our digital revenues exceed our film revenues.” If you comb through the blog, which is written by employees, you’ll see some just reallly fun, personable quirky entries, including a recent one about attending last weekend’s Nascar race in Watkins Glen. (Great photos and a video. And I didn’t realize that they paint the headlights on the cars, since they aren’t needed but the cars look funny without them)

Then in January, Kodak launched a technology blog called A Thousand Nerds, as a place where Kodak’s geeks share ideas. There’s true geekery here, like a post on quantum amplication. Of then, of course, there’s posts of geeks gone wild. Just check out the post about the home-made rocket propelled disposable video camera that’s launched in a soda bottle. (My husband would love this site).

The blogs are low key, but I think that’s what’s clever about them. By a lot of people contributing posts, you get a sense of the people at Kodak. And that gives you a sense of the company. The posts are earnest and funny and technical and full of photos. I doubt the site is overwhelmed with traffic, but if you’re someone who is visiting the kodak site looking for information, it’s probably likely that you would click on these blogs. And just like the About link or the History link, they give you a feeling for the company you’re doing business with.

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