Mark Cuban Interview

We are honored that Mark Cuban, one of our favorite bloggers, took time to answer a few questions for an upcoming chapter. His answers are both terse and candid. In respect to one of his key points, we are printing it in full with just a couple of clean ups to typos and punctuation:

1. What made you decide to blog?

It was in response to the media primarily. I was tired of 4-hour interviews being turned into 500-word reports that mischaracterized the interviews. I sat down with Fortune Magazine for what I thought was a serious interview, and it turned into something completely different. Those types of situations were the catalyst.

2. What is your strategic objective?

To say whatever is on my mind about a subject I think is important.

3. You take on sports media coverage with passion. Do you think fans are hearing your view? Do you think you’ve had impact on the way the Mavericks—or sports in general—are being covered?

I think that any reporter or columnist will be a little more careful when doing interviews with me. Specifically, because I do 99 pct of my interviews now via email. SO, I have a paper trail that is ready and available to be revealed on my blog.

4. What impact has Blog Maverick had on the team’s fan base? Are the Mavericks still a Dallas team, or are they becoming more widely followed?

Minimal if any. I haven’t used it for that purpose.

5. How does the Maverick organization respond to your blogs?

They read them for insight on what's important to me, but that’s it. Its not a management tool of any sort

6. What about referees? Do you think you’ve moved the needle in the way they officiate?

No question about it. The league handles officiating in a far more professional manner than prior to my arrival. They approach it like a real business unit now. They didn’t in the past.

7. Why should or shouldn’t executives in general blog? What advice do you have for executives considering blogs?

Executives should blog if they have a vision they are trying to communicate, or if they are very visible in the media.

8. Most bloggers associated with a company or brand just stick to one subject. You cover whatever you please, from short-trading, to the RIAA to the death of CDs as a medium. Is this just because you have the freedom to do it? Or is their a strategy behind it?

Just because I have freedom to do it.

9. What advice do you have for other executives who are considering a blog?

Make sure you are the boss. I don't think I would encourage executives that work for me to blog. There can be only 1 public vision for an organization. There can be multiple presentations of technology. In-depth technical information can be the most valuable use of a blog, but the boss and subordinates don’t always see eye-to-eye, and having more than one message going out via a blog, can be very counterproductive

10. Do you have any anecdotes that will help my co-author and me win a Pulitzer Prize with this book?
Nope

Comments

[Randy Charles Morin]

Love #10.

[Michael Hyatt]

I found this interview fascinating, though I disagree completely with Mark on several points. I think his idea that only the "boss" can blog is very old school. In my humble opinion, this kind of forced hierarchy is counter-productive and artificial.

Employees today are stakeholders. They want to participate in a shared vision of the future. Each employee has a valuable and important perspective that needs to be given a voice. Yes, you can have a monolithic point-of-view filtered through the personality of one person. Or, you can manifest the rich tapestry of life and business as it is—multidimensional and multifaceted. While this isn't as easy to "control," it is far more interesting to readers.

[Curt]

Man would I pass on working for THIS guy. Blogging allows him to say what he will (MEDIA BAD!) but allows no one else to say what they will? I suppose that's his choice, as he is The Boss (why, he says so himself), but I'm not sure what you could hope to learn from him, as he seems 100% Stone Cold 1950s Boss Man. If you can dish it out but you can't take it, you may not be the poster child for blogging, more of a cautionary tale.

[Randy H.]

I hope that you cite Cuban as a bad or misguided example for blogging. His idea is that his blog is a big stick that he can use to poke the media- that's a petty point of view.

[Scott Baradell]

Corporations are top-down organizations as a rule, even when run by hipsters like Mark Cuban. Hence the one-company, one-blog point of view.