I had a meeting today with the Managing Director of a hugely successful UK media company. When the conversation turned to blogs, the MD said: "Every company should have a blog strategy." My thoughts? "Yes, exactly." Then it turned out that the kind of strategy he was thinking of was a reactive one, all about shutting down disgruntled customers' blogs and other forums.

I was relieved that this guy wasn't actually advocating that kind of iron-fisted, backwards approach to conversing with customers - it was merely what came to his head when he thought of 'blog strategy'. The proactive, positive approach of using social media to talk with the people who matter - customers, employees, industry influencers, or even potential investors - is far from the minds of upper management in most companies when subjects like blogging enter their awareness.

Their take is, of course, one based on fear. Not only fear of what they do not know, but fear of what they cannot control. The simple fact is that this stuff can be learned, and that certain things can be controlled. Control what you can, not what you wish you could, as many wise women and men have said. But the process starts with learning and exploring, when a lot of upper management types really just want answers and numbers to cross their desks.

The MD I spoke was much more sensible and, well, clever than most. He today wondered if PR agencies were on to the blog thing yet. I told him that a lot of them know they need to be on top of it, and a few actually have the right idea. But another simple fact is that even 'new media' PRs come from a channel world, which is what they know best. The networked world - the world of conversation, not one-way broadcast - is foreign to them, too.

If you ever want to see a high level executive panic, tell him that not only do his people not know what to do, but his PR agency doesn't have a clue, either. (It is less fun to play this game, I imagine, if you are one of the people who really should know what's going on.)