Sam Sova likens launching a B2B blog for AT&T to ramping up an online newspaper, with the exception that the AT&T subject matter experts who are participating aren’t editors or journalists. They’re people paid to do other things. Writing about the things they do for AT&T isn’t always top of mind.

Sova, who managed a similar initiative at Fiserv, a financial services technology company, understands that blogging remains relatively new to the corporate world, but he’s encouraged by AT&T’s willingness to be more open. “Not doing something like this can hurt a company in the long run,” says Sova. “People will create their own sites and their own discussion forums and talk about you anyway.”