I'm normally not one to post about issues related to blogging but I figured I should say something about the recent Technorati episode where an employee posted some images which were bound to cause a reaction and the company responded. I'm not going to play the company censorship card nor am I going to say that employees should stop blogging. There have been some interesting posts about all of this today which I want to point out and comment on but first, a little story of my own.
When I worked at CollabNet, I wrote a seemingly innocent post about a change to our business which though I understood it, I didn't necessarily like. It was something which was going to be obvious to anyone so I figured it was safe. I did this at around 2 in the morning after I was done with my part of the change. The next morning I found I had been linked to by Dave and I had a couple of emails from reporters asking me about the change. This was definitely something I hadn't thought would happen so I sent an email to my boss, alerting him of the issue. He wasn't exactly thrilled by the post nor about the attention since it was hoped the change would fly underneath the radar for a bit of time. The couple of hours it took to resolve this wasn't fun especially since I was a remote employee and everything was done either thru email, IRC or the phone. But everything worked out. I declined comment by the reporters and I didn't face any problems at work. Mine was a happy ending but not everyone has been that lucky.
Tim Bray's post gives ten reasons why blogging is good for your career. This focuses on the individual of a company and I tend to agree with the list and the assumption about the blogger.
Let’s assume that you’re reasonably competent, reasonably coherent, and reasonably mature. Cynicism aside, a substantial majority of the people in the workplace qualify.
Scoble gives more advice for the corporate blogger on the Red Couch blog. I think both Tim and Robert are really good examples of how-to blog when everyone knows who you work for and will read into everything you say. I think they both do a great job of being interesting and bringing value to their respective companies.
Ben Hammersley looks at the situation a bit different as he focuses on the balance of power between the employer and the employee.
Both gain reputation from the blog: If average person x blogs about his work at hot company y, person x gains hotness from that company. If hot person a goes to work and blog from average company b, the company gains kudos in return.
I started BaristaLog in December of 1999 and then moved here a couple of years ago. I've worked for three companies (EarthLink twice) during that span. I think I've done a fairly good job at keeping things both personal and professional safe. When I talk about work stuff, it generally is in the context of the technology I'm assuming as opposed to the product I'm working on. I find this a good way to keep balance.
To the best of my knowledge, EarthLink does not have an official blogging policy but from what I understand one is possibly in the works. There are few people that I know of who blog and I wish it was more because there are some amazingly smart people here with plenty to say.
One more thing just in case it isn't obvious, I work for EarthLink but I in no way speak for them nor will they agree with everything I say. I will be putting this disclaimer up soon.
Posted by Josh at March 9, 2005 01:27 PM | TrackBack