Progressive Insurance CIO Raymond Voelker can take commentary and criticism as well as he can dish them out. Several years ago he started an internal company blog, called The IT Blog, that lets employees comment anonymously on whatever IT and other issues are on their minds. "You can say what you want about me and my boss--and people do--and I say whatever I want back," he says.

The upside is that Voelker gets keyed into the challenges and concerns, both in the IT organization and the company at large, that might not come to the surface through normal communication channels. The worst that's happened is that he has had to remove the occasional post because of inappropriate language.

Progressive takes anonymity seriously, Voelker says. "I'm sure my top security guys could hunt someone down if they had to," he says, "but I'm proud the culture of the company hasn't made me ever want to do that."

Recently, Voelker held a contest to let an employee take over the blog while he was on vacation. "It generated community interest and let people put issues on my radar screen," he says. It also reinforced the CIO's overarching message: If you've got something to say, say it.

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