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Does Tom Glocer really blog?

20 March 2007 2 comments

Paul Penrose

Head of Research

Finextra

That was the question asked by Andrew Martin at The New Marketing blog site. He'd noticed that postings to Tom Glocer's blog seemed to be made by two individuals.

The first is Tom Glocer who has posted twice. The other is someone called tom who has posted 55 times.

"Is one of them a ghost writter concocted by an overeager PR machine?" asks Martin.

Well, the answer is no. At least, that's the answer given by the real Tom Glocer, who replied to the post in person.

"There are two accounts one that I use directly and one that my regular, non-PR assistant Jane uses to log-in when I dictate posts from the road," he says in response. "I know it may seem very old fashioned, but when you travel to some of the far-flung corners of the Reuters world and don't have decent bandwidth in transit, nothing can beat a phoned-in post."

Or in Tom's case - an instruction to your PA to upload your latest speech on free trade at the Wheeltappers and Shunters Club in Shanghai.

Leafing through Tom's less-than-illuminating output, the question that really springs to mind is not 'Does Tom Glocer really blog?', but: 'Why does Tom Glocer really blog?'

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Comments: (3)

A Finextra member

20 March 2007

Why indeed? As Chris Skinner said "Sorry about the shameless plugs, but why else does one blog m'dears?" I was a little surprised by Tom's page views - they seemed a little on the low side.

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Steve Ellis Founder at Finextra Research

21 March 2007

Oh come on, cut him some slack.

Tom Glocer's blog may not be as slick as Tom Peters! but its a lot more authentic.

Most people cannot stand slick 'CEO' blogs that originate from inside corporate PR machines., so give Tom some credit for his own DIY approach.

It says to me that Tom 'gets it' which puts him in the minority among CEOs but may explain why Reuters is an increasingly interesting company to track in relation to social media related strategies.

Blog on, Tom.

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Paul Penrose Head of Research at Finextra

Author 22 March 2007

I’ve rummaged around Tom’s blog and the most interesting post to date is this one, in which the Reuters’ CEO offers an explanation for the sale of the Factive and Instinet business units. The sales had been criticised internally and Tom used the blog format as an informal mechanism to rebut the critics and at the same time provide some genuine insight into the corporate rationale.

Reuters spent £77 million last year on its Core Plus investment strategy, which is designed to generate growth after year’s of cost-cutting. It’s a major strategic investment by the vendor, yet it barely rates a mention in Tom’s blogs. Likewise, where can we get Tom’s perspective on the changing nature of the market data industry, growth in credit and derivatives, consolidation among exchanges etc – and the implications of these marketplace upheavals for Reuters’ customers, prospects, shareholders and staff.

HSBC recently signed a global licence deal with Reuters that will enable it to use the vendor's data and information across its entire business. It’s a big deal and shows a new direction for off-floor data distribution, but Tom steers clear. Sure, we don’t expect trade secrets, but it strikes me that Tom’s failure to address these issues head on and engage in a genuine debate with stakeholders through the interactive blog format is a missed opportunity.

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