Monday, June 04, 2007 12:24 PM
by
stevecla01
Third of bloggers risk being fired
At the Blogging 2.0 roundtable I attended last week, this topic was debated in quite some detail and I also chatted about it with Matthew Bishop, one of our UK directors, on Friday. He rightly pointed out that though we have a pretty basic blogging policy at Microsoft, we also operate a peer review type of policy. I'm still noodling on that but more on it later this week I expect.
Anyway, back to the BBC and Blogging
Croner surveyed 2,000 people who keep a personal internet blog or diary and 39% said that they made harmful comments.
I suppose it depends what you classify as "harmful comments" but in general I think that's pretty dumb. Okay so you may say something bad about your employer down at the pub on a Friday night when you've had a crappy week and want to blow off some steam but that's WAY different from saying it on a blog. People need to get this:
On a blog, you're automatically a spokesperson for your company
and you will be treated as such by the media. Yep, that mean the Times of London, the BBC, CNN and others. They can find the juicy bits of the blogosphere just as well as anyone and they will publish you whether you like it or not. Exhibit A
About 10 months ago I encouraged all of my team to blog - and now they all do. I never told them how to or why to but they got it. I also never had to police. They're smart people. They know right from wrong and they know when they're straying in to dangerous territory on their blog. How do they know? Because they're smart? Yes, but more likely because it's obvious what's right and wrong. I have a very basic view of this but I do think it's becoming more of a grey area for people hence I think we'll likely need more checks and balances to help people rather than restrain them. Maggie Holland was keenly interested so I'm looking forward to seeing what she posts but I'm with Euan on this one. The Beeb needs to lighten up.
In the meantime, maybe the rules in my blogging deck on slideshare may help?
NB: I changed the title of the BBC's original article from Third of bloggers 'risk the sack' to Third of bloggers risk being fired. It just seems a more universal title than theirs...
