Web Worker Daily

theo geer says: March 26th, 2008 11:09am

Blogging Policy? I’m not even sure my company has a technology use policy. I work for a small Hedge Fund Administrator. First day I asked my boss “What’s the policy on installing non-standard software?” his response? “We have a policy?”

Awesome. :)

That said I have some thoughts. I detest any form of censorship or limitation on expression. At the same time, libel and slander laws exist for a reason. I think it’s wrong for a company to try to restrict the right of their employee to communicate and share experiences with the world. On the same note, I think it’s bad form to publicly dis the company that pays your salary, or disclose sensitive information. I think it’s a fine line. As long as I’m not naming names or giving away company data I see nothing wrong with occasionally blogging about work (not that my blog is career related in any way).

Does Your Company Have a Blogging Policy? at Churbuck.com says: March 26th, 2008 11:23am

[...] Web Worker Daily » Archive Open Thread: Does Your Company Have a Blogging Policy? « I know it is in vogue to say “feh” to blog policies and focus more on blog strategies, but this post on GigaOm’s WebWorkerDaily provokes a $64,000 qiuestion: “What comprises an effective blogging policy? How do you go about developing such a policy? Do employers have authority in dictating what an employee blogs about, given the company’s name is never mentioned? [emphasis mine] Do you know if your company has a blogging policy? If so, is it too restrictive?” [...]

Barbara Bates says: March 26th, 2008 12:48pm

Since we’re big on practicing what we preach, we developed a blog policy early in our blogging strategy and help clients put them together as well. While companies are more and more open to allowing their employees to blog…and see the benefit of it to their company…there are still a lot of folks nervous about the lasting affect of one bad blog post. Blogging policies don’t necessarily need to be limiting. In fact, we find that our employees and our clients welcome the guidance on what they should and shouldn’t blog about. Most of it is common sense…and in those cases when common sense goes out the door…a good blogging policy can help bring it back in.

jason says: March 26th, 2008 2:39pm

Doesn’t all this conflict with the same NDA you signed when accepting the job. It personally depends on where the blog is stored in the first place, if it is a online corporate websites blog site or an employees personal blog. A blogging policy would only be essential to be stated to employees in-house when a corporate website blog is allowed. All outside blog sources still are under the NDA agreement.

TourPro says: March 26th, 2008 3:33pm

Luckily for me, almost 100% of my bosses don’t have a clue what a blog even is, let alone come up with a policy that would only apply to me.

This mole can’t be whacked.

Dale Cruse says: March 26th, 2008 5:39pm

We’re about to!

William de Worde says: March 26th, 2008 8:54pm

My current organization doesn’t have a blogging policy, heck my blog is one reason I was hired!

However, the news organization I used to work for had a very draconian blogging policy. Any writing outside of the office was punished by termination. The news org. owned any professional writing you did, especially for electronic publications (which they saw as a competing news organization, no matter where it was located - and blogs were at the top of the list). Of course there was selective enforcement of the policy.

I don’t think companies should have a policy influencing blogging outside of the workplace, after all you’re not responsible to the company once you walk out the front door. While common sense should kick in (i.e. don’t mention the employers name, etc.) people should not be hindered from blogging about their industry. (just my two cents, before taxes)

Brian Carnell says: March 27th, 2008 3:42am

I thought Jason’s summary was absurdly vague. This isn’t just some employee at Cisco with a random blog. This is their IP director blogging in excruciating detail semi-anonymously about companies and cases that Cisco is intimately involved with as a defendant.

That said, the actual lawsuit seems to have been filed as more of a nuisance to give Cisco a bit of bad press and to out the blogger’s identity.

Judi Sohn says: March 27th, 2008 4:56am

@Brian, it wasn’t Jason’s intention to report on the Cisco case as news. Instead, I think it’s meant to open the dialog about the implications of blogging the answer to “how was your day, dear?”

Where does a company draw a line? Policies tend to be written black & white. How much talking about work is too much? Does it only apply to “insider” information? Is it okay if names aren’t mentioned? These are questions that companies large and small are having to answer that they didn’t 5 years ago.

I blog about my employer all the time on my personal site. Everyone I work with knows I blog and they read it. But because I love my job and I have a strategic role, it helps my organization more than it hurts. We’re too small right now to have a blogging policy for employees, but I imagine we might have to one day when it’s more than just me with a personal site.

Brian Carnell says: March 27th, 2008 11:40pm

@Judi…nice blog…you had me at R-E-C-T-A-L.

Judi Sohn says: March 28th, 2008 4:17am

I guess I should explain after Brian’s comment that I work for a colorectal cancer patient advocacy nonprofit organization. :-)

About Corporate Blogging : Ameel’s Career & MBA Exposition (ACME) says: March 28th, 2008 7:14am

[...] CNET’s Anne Broache recently covered the Frenkel story as well, but from the point of view of corporate blogging — which, of course, is also my primary point of view. It’s a good article that talks about corporate blogging policies which, as expected, most companies don’t have (see also Jason Harris’ open thread on Web Worker Daily: Does Your Company Have a Blogging Policy?). [...]

Dale Lane says: April 2nd, 2008 6:08pm

Yup.

Our Blogging Guidelines were created by bloggers in a collaborative exercise on an intranet wiki. They’ve been around for a couple of years now and are mainly common-sense. And I’ve never felt restricted by them.

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