Although the Internet can be a dangerous place for CEOs with opinions, more top executives are venturing online--mostly with signed blogs, or personal Web pages. Top-level corporate bloggers include J.W. "Bill" Marriott Jr., chairman and CEO of Marriott International, Michael Critelli, executive chairman of Pitney Bowes, and Robert Lutz, a vice chairman of General Motors.
Blogs offer CEOs a way to communicate with investors, employees and customers, and to defend themselves when under fire. Done well, "a blog is an extremely effective way of articulating a vision," says Debbie Weil, a corporate-blogging consultant and author of "The Corporate Blogging Book." But blogs, chat rooms and stock-message boards also pose pitfalls, particularly for executives unaccustomed to unfiltered dialogue.
Some CEOs deliberately stay away from newsy or controversial subjects in their posts, and many companies now review executive writings before they are posted. Forty of the country's biggest 500 companies now publish corporate blogs, according to the Fortune 500 Blogging Wiki, a collaborative tracking site.
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