Chris Ronan spoke on corporate blogging as part of a panel at the NIRI (National Investor Relations Institute) Southwest Region conference in San Antonio, TX last week.

The purpose of the panel session was to explore blogs as an element in today’s corporate communications platforms and identify the key roles Investor Relations Officers (IROs) should play in the development and management of their corporate blogs.

Other panel members included Angela Vargo from Southwest Airlines, Bob Pearson from Dell, Inc. and Paul Arne, an attorney with Morris, Manning & Martin, LLP in Atlanta. The panel was moderated by Carey Hendrickson from Belo Corp.

rd2 also developed a blog for the conference www.niridfwblog.org to demonstrate how the tool can be used to further the organization’s communications. The blog will morph into the NIRI DFW Chapter blog after a week or two. The exercise is interesting because it is showing some of the issues involved with launching a blog. It will also serve as an ongoing example of how this kind of tool can evolve to benefit an organization.