On Harvard and Blogging Yesterday I had a terrific e-mail discussion with a Harvard prof who had had some experience blogging at another university, and wanted to chat about why Harvard is, in my opinion, troglodytic on this score, and why I think it matters.

Our conversation ranged from whether humanists are less collegial than scientists (very possibly), whether blogging is a good use of professors' time, and what aspects of Harvard culture (whoops, typed "vulture" by mistake) might be resistant to blogging.

I could write a long essay on this—and be careful, or someday I will—but in brief, here's why I think academics should blog.

1) Blogs disseminate information.
2) They create a community of people with similar interests, and they attract people who might not otherwise have become interested in a particular topic.
3) They provide a casual forum in which a writer can lay out raw or untested thinking and invite feedback and constructive criticism.
4) They democratize and invigorate the relationship between teacher and student.
5) They democratize academic knowledge.
6) They have consequences that we can not predict but challenge us to think and learn in new ways.
7) They pressure their creators to think about how to make their work relevant and accessible to interested audiences.

Here are some theories about why Harvard humanists don't blog:
1) Humanists don't get the Net.
2) Harvard has a profoundly hierarchical culture, and those who work at Harvard buy into it almost always. Blogs break down barriers and challenge hierarchies, and as such they present a threat to the professional status of an academic cohort that is already feeling insecure.
3) Harvard is conservative and doesn't like change and innovation, particularly within the FAS.
4) Harvard profs spend more time writing for journals, which have more tangible consequences for professional advancement—even if far more people read blogs than read journals.
5) Harvard profs worry that their writing on blogs may not be as polished and sophisticated as their published writing, and the idea of easy access to the rough drafts of their histories unnerves them.
6) Harvard has a conservative, conformist culture which does not reward people who take chances and speak their mind, but punishes those people.
7) Blogs require time, and Harvard profs already feel over-scheduled.

I thought about these theories, especially #s 3 and 6, last night as I had insomnia and was reading the latest issue of Wired.

Two articles in the magazine talk about how corporations are experimenting with unprecedented levels of transparency in their businesses—and how their candor is paying off in better customer relations and intellectual excitement within the corporations.

"The See-Through CEO" talks about this concept of "radical transparency" in a way that made me wonder how much Harvard could benefit from such an experiment.

Radical forms of transparency are now the norm at startups - and even some Fortune 500 companies. It is a strange and abrupt reversal of corporate values. Not long ago, the only public statements a company ever made were professionally written press releases and the rare, stage-managed speech by the CEO. Now firms spill information in torrents, posting internal memos and strategy goals, letting everyone from the top dog to shop-floor workers blog publicly about what their firm is doing right - and wrong. Jonathan Schwartz, the CEO of Sun Microsystems, dishes company dirt and apologizes to startups he's accidentally screwed. Venture capitalists now demand that CEOs be fluent in blogspeak. In February, after JetBlue trapped passengers for hours in its storm-grounded planes and canceled 1,100 flights, CEO David Neeleman tried to deflect the blast of bad publicity by using YouTube to air his own blunt mea culpa. Microsoft, once a paragon of buttoned-down control, now posts uncensored internal videos - and encourages its engineers to blog freely about their projects (see page 140). The very process of developing ideas, products, and messages is changing - from musing about it in a room with your top people to throwing it out on the Web and asking the global smartmob for a little help. That's how this article was written: I've been blogging about it since I started, and some of the reader input I received is reproduced on these pages.

And I think of Harvard's instinctive hostility to the press, its circle-the-wagons mentality whenever something "bad" happens, the secrecy it promulgates in a hundred different ways. Yet such values are contrary to the spirit of the university; imagine the burst of knowledge, discussion and debate that would be sparked if Harvard tried some experiments in radical transparency.

An example: I understand that trying to turn lectures into Podcasts—not that many humanists would even think of this—requires navigating through horrendous bureaucratic red tape.

I'll bet you it doesn't at Stanford.

And here's a little experiment: Do a search for "Yale" in iTunes podcasts, then search for "Harvard." One of these universities gives away most of its podcasts, one makes you pay for them. Guess which makes you pay?

Another example: Why couldn't Drew Faust start a blog? Lots of university presidents already do. (Harvard minds will instinctively think of reasons why this is a bad idea. That reflex alone is telling.)

Perhaps Commencement speaker Bill Gates could shed some light on this. Another article in Wired, Operation Channel 9, talks about how the company created a website on which it aired video of internal deliberations. At first, lawyers and some executives freaked out about it. Now Channel 9 (read the article, the origin of the name is pretty cool) is admired in the business world as one of the most progressive and exciting new business strategies in a company that could really use them these days.

Why couldn't Harvard create such a website upon which it posted, say, the faculty meeting deliberations over curricular reform? A preliminary meeting of an admissions committee? Even—gasp! shock!—a meeting of the Corporation?

Again, Harvard minds will think of reasons to say no. But here are two good reasons to say yes. One, other places will do it if you don't, and Harvard will be left behind.

And two, Harvard humanists, let's face it: You folks are in trouble. Your disciplines are being marginalized, you're not getting any money, no one's reading books any more, the sciences are getting a whole new campus! Are you feeling anxious? You should.

I happen to think that such experiments—blogging, webcasting, podcasting, and so on—will help spread your important work and increase your professional status. But even if it doesn't, hell, what have you got to lose?  ¶ 8:02 AM