BarCamp Vancouver: Blogging in a Corporate Culture

I just found out about and signed up for BarCamp Vancouver, a very cool-sounding event coming up from August 25-27.

It sounds a bit like a jam (as in music) of minds around all topics new media. People are invited to attend this free conference as long as they volunteer to present or share their own knowledge. I love the sound of it. Here's the description from the site:

As stolen from BarCampNYC and BarCampLosAngeles, as copied from BarCampSanDiego) BarCamp is an ad-hoc un-conference born from the desire for people to share and learn in an open environment. It is an intense event with discussions, demos and interaction from attendees.
All attendees must give a demo, a session, or help with one. All presentions are scheduled the day they happen. Prepare in advance, but come early to get a slot on the wall.
Presenters are responsible for making sure that notes/slides/audio/video of their presentations are published on the web for the benefit of all and those who can’t be present.
Anyone with something to contribute or with the desire to learn is welcome and invited to join.

Slots appear to be filling up fast, so join in if you're interested. I'm going to do a brief presentation on 'blogging to change corporate culture', sharing some of the experiences I've had with getting people to blog. I know, it sounds easy -- but in an environment where people have been taught for many years to compete with each other rather than collaborate with each other, it's tough to get them talking. There are a few people who are indeed changing this -- people who are brave or bold enough to just come out and say what they think. We encourage and applaud them as best we can within the knowledge group, but what's really required is a little corporate nudge every so often.

It's funny -- I was writing up a brief yesterday on blogging for our execs, and what I'm really trying to tell them, I realized, is that they shouldn't blog. The reason is simple: in this culture, these are the guys who people are most afraid of. These guys fire people. These are the guys that already tell us what they want us to do. I believe what we need in our company is a little more trust among peers ... so what I have found myself advising our executives to do is really to just shut up and listen. Read the blogs, yes. Comment on them occasionally -- in encouraging terms -- let let people know that they're listening. But for now, let the blogs be a forum for the people, at a grassroots level.

I'm interested to hear how they respond to this.