Cynthia Brumfield at IP Democracy e-mailed me this morning to note that Insight Communications CEO Michael Willner has started blogging, and one of his first posts discusses how he scouts Broadband Reports before he reads the NY Times. Willner has long been very active in our forums, particularly during the company's recent unwinding of a partnership with Comcast, which resulted in the transfer of thousands of customers. Says Willner:Willner has long received kudos from me for being one of the few industry CEOs brave enough to be accessible to our forum regulars -- all in the spirit of something that seems like a lost tradition: customer service. And unlike some company policy blogs where everything is carefully worded legalese aimed solely at manipulating image, he's blogging off the cuff without the help of a PR team.

That said, as I mentioned recently when bloggers began giving Comcast full body massages for using Twitter, there is a clear difference between placating customers in order to protect brand image, and using online communities to monitor and improve the core issues that cause customer complaints in the first place. The former is cheaper than actually fixing problems. Here's to hoping that Willner is dedicated to the latter.