Where’ve You Been, Enterprise? Part I: Eastman Kodak Company

After talking with Angela LoSasso at Web 2.0 Expo, I started thinking about some of the “dinosaur” companies: enterprise and Web 1.0 companies that are trying to find their way in the Web 2.0 space. I had just seen a press release announcing the appointment of a “Chief Blogger” at Eastman Kodak Company. Like most born-and-bred Rochesterians, I’ve lived in the shadow of Kodak my whole life (literally: the house I grew up in was on the same street as entrances to the Kodak Park parking lots), and I did a few tours through the company as summer co-op and contractor. Seeing the press release and talking with Angela made me start wondering what an old-time enterprise company like Kodak is doing in the social media space to modernize the company and communicate with their customers and potential customers, and I asked Kodak’s new Chief Blogger, Jennifer Cisney, if she’d be willing to talk to us. Here is our interview:

Cyndy: How long have you been with Kodak and what were you doing there before you became the “official Kodak blogger?”

Jennifer: I have been with Kodak for 10 years! This July will be my anniversary. I started at Kodak right after graduating from RIT with my Masters in Computer Graphics Design. Several of us from that program ended up at kodak.com.

I started off as a visual interaction designer in kodak.com. I went on to do some user interface design, usability and information architecture. Because I had been blogging for a long time personally, when the time came to start our corporate blog, I was a natural choice to be involved in the planning and creation process. After a year and a half of working on and contributing to the blog I became the “Chief Blogger”. Now all of my time is dedicated to the blog. Oh wait, not all of it… I also record podcasts, post Kodak Twitters, maintain the Kodak YouTube Channel, develop radio spots for David Graveline’s Into Tomorrow show and because I am a crafter I develop photo projects for our Tips & Projects Center.

Working on the blog was also a good fit because my Bachelor’s degree is in Communications. I wasn’t into traditional PR etc. at the time, but now with the internet I am much more interested.

What do you feel your role at the company is? Does it sync up with how management views the company’s use of social media or do you ever feel like you are acting as the bellwether for Kodak?

My role is to find opportunities to communicate with people through social media. Interacting with customers this way takes a lot of care and feeding. Operating the blog is a big commitment.

I would say management generally isn’t on the cutting edge of web trends but there are a few on Facebook! It takes a lot of time to keep up with everything that is new online. But we are very fortunate that management is open to learning about social media and is supportive of our use of it.

What do you hope to accomplish in this role?

Everytime we get a blog comment, blog mention, Twitter response or YouTube channel subscription I feel like we are successful.

Is there anything Kodak isn’t doing right now in the social media space you’d like to see them doing?

I think it would be great if we could get a social network going where we can get more user generated content. I can see that happening in the future for us.

Do you get much negative reaction via your official use of social media? Do you get any venting about the company in general?

Our blog 1000Words is very well received. We were listed as PR Week’s Top 5 Corporate Blogs That Build Buzz. Even Robert Scoble Twittered that he liked 1000Words.

Occasionally, but not very often [we get people using the blog or Twitter to vent about Kodak]. Sometimes a customer who found the blog before they found the product support page will express frustration or ask for technical help. When some of the old Kodak buildings were imploded local people voiced their opinion on the blog. That was interesting. The blog was the only place they had to be heard.

Does Kodak have any plans to use social media to reach out to the local community with any dedicated effort apart from the national face of the company? Would you like to see/have seen some type of forum where the local community could convene and share some of their feelings?

We don’t have plans for that right now, but it would be a great idea. I know the people at Kodak really care about the community because a large part of them are that community.

Rochester’s tech scene often seems non-existent, with the town very much still tied to the huge manufacturing companies like Kodak and Xerox. What do you think needs to happen for that to change?

As for [Rochester's] online presence, I think it’s pretty cool we have our own Rochester Wiki and Craigslist. And I know there are Flickr meet ups occasionally. I do wish we were on Yelp.

I like seeing local establishments really using the web. Like the George Eastman House setting up a Flickr account. The South Wedge Market [warning: site loads video with sound that plays immediately] posting video of their market on their web page. Democrat and Chronicle enlisting neighborhood bloggers.

Now if you are talking about technical folks actually getting together and networking, I am not aware of a lot of that going on. I did attend Imagine RIT last weekend and recently heard Jon Maeda speak there. I think having RIT here is a big help. There are active marketing and advertising groups but technical groups… not so much.

I’d like to thank Jennifer for talking to me. You can see more of her on the 1000Words blog, as well as on Kodak’s PluggedIn blog, and on Twitter as KodakCB.