Blogging in the Corporate World - Employee Bloggers

Blogging in the Corporate World - Employee Bloggers... Caveat Blogger

(Part 2 in the Blogging in the Corporate World. See Part 1 here.)
Note: This is based off the second half of a 30 min presentation I gave for Revenue.net at OMMA. The piece is anything but short.

Long before companies started to leverage blogging as a next generation CRM solution and/or a means for thought leadership, individuals were using blogging to meet their own needs and sometimes no needs at all. Not many other activities provide such an effective catharsis from the ups and downs of everyday life as blogging does. More than the emotional release that comes from putting words to word press, blogging offers, among other things, a way to store information, stay in touch with others, connect with like minded people, and even get discovered. Unfortunately for those who blog, that last part, the discovery, can be a double-edged sword - you might get more than you bargained for from your blog, i.e. fired.

As an employee who blogs and more often than not chooses to cover industry topics, I have seen first hand the benefits a blog can have both for me and for the company. I’ve also made mistakes with my blog. Luckily, I did not get dooced as a result, but that is only minor consolation for my having more than indirectly contributed to our not closing a large relationship. I got to keep my job and keep blogging. Many employees aren’t as fortunate, and many employers rightly worry about a similar situation happening in their company. Unfortunately, though, such defensive behavior almost guarantees that companies will miss out on the tremendous upside. Employee bloggers is a topic with two distinct audiences, companies and individuals, and this piece does its best to cover each.

Just in case you didn’t read last week’s tome on the first half of the corporate blog landscape, i.e. company run blogs, it’s worth taking a step back and reiterating why we chose to break up the corporate blog landscape into the two distinct parts, i.e. company blogs and employees who blog. The answer, simply enough, is that at their core, they are very different animals, and companies that try to apply the same mental framework to both will fail at both. As we mentioned last week, and as I mentioned at our OMMA Workshop, a company blog is a controlled environment, the official say of the company. An employee blog on the other hand is more like peer-to-peer software; it’s a decentralized and distributed means for the company to achieve thought leadership and industry influence. Both company blogs and employee’s blogs can, and do, exist independent of one another; and, engaging the blogosphere does not mean choosing between the two. It simply means understand the rules – controlling where you can and letting go in others.

What types of employees have blogs? Judging from those that I read, and those I have come across doing some research, the answer is all levels. Anyone from secretaries to CEO’s maintains an active blog, one that they will contribute to at least weekly. Some of the better known employee bloggers are technologists, and in many ways this makes sense. Technologists create the online trends that the mainstream adapts and adopts. Blogging counts as one of those trends, and technologists within companies often knew about blogs and began blogging long before the rest of us. Some of the employee bloggers are pseudo-celebrities, drawing an audience at conferences that seems more appropriate for Jessica Alba than an industry Steven King.

Charlene Li, a well known employee blogger for Forrester and blogging white paper author said in October 2004 that employees will blog whether you (the employer) like it or not. And more than a handful of employees do so today. The initial reaction for many companies is to control what their employees say on their personal blog, especially if that blog covers some aspects of the employees’ occupation. Individual run blogs simply don’t work that way, and the harder a company tries to control what gets said, the greater the backlash that will occur. That doesn’t mean companies should take a completely hands off approach. Instead a company should set boundaries and provide context for its employees who might currently blog or begin blogging. Companies from Yahoo to IBM have a policy regarding employee participation in public discourse, and surprising to some, the policies tend to offer a great degree of flexibility. They also tend to avoid dense legalese and choose instead to be more informal, i.e. they communicate to bloggers the way bloggers communicate with their audience.

Best practices for Employers

• Err on the side of flexibility, openness, and trust with employee – includes allowing blogging on company time and say negative things.

• Ask employees who blog about the company and industry to submit URL – help them understand that you respect their right to free speech, and that you will read employee blogs just as much to learn from them as to keep aware of the company brand. If you have incented employees properly, they will want to contribute and have no reason to hide.

• Censure first then fire: getting rid of someone is likely to draw more interest to their cause – the rules of blogging are still being written, and often employees will make unintentional mistakes, ones such as my situation that led to potential client not closing to others that could initially seem like the person has shared too much.

Companies should know that blogging, regardless of who does it, is a form of personal expression and personal branding. Some employees will promote the company more than others, and that is fine. There is no way to right or wrong amount. Additionally, much as the blogosphere is a highly democratic medium, e.g. last week we discussed how company blogs often link to their competitors’, when setting policy for employees, companies should keep an open mind, focusing on fairness, and keeping the nature of blogging in mind. A good example and something allowed by Yahoo and Sun is that employees should have the ability to say negative things. They will not necessarily agree with everything the company does, and it’s ok if their blogs reflect this. Here is a quote from one of Yahoo’s well-known and highly respected employee bloggers, Jeremy Zawodny on why Google Finance “made him sad.”

“I'm not gonna name names (virtually none of them are around anymore anyway), but there was a real lack of leadership in Finance for long time and it really sucked the life out of the group. Users noticed. Finance employees noticed. Other Yahoos noticed. We all knew it. And, frankly, I was glad to be out when I moved on.”

You wouldn’t want to put that quote on a press release. Such a comment flies in the face of conventional corporate wisdom, yet it is that frankness that earns Jeremy and Yahoo increased credibility and respect for allowing it. It’s worth noting, though, that the average employee should not attempt such frankness. Just as the blogosphere is, to a degree, built on reputation, the same holds true for an employee. Jeremy’s tenure and value to Yahoo are what enable him to speak so candidly. He has proven himself as an employee, and built up the reputation internally.

I don’t like blogging negatively. The risks outweigh the positives. One might be allowed, but it could easily add undue stress internally. Nonetheless, some will feel compelled to criticize publicly. If you must, I recommend looking at ones tenure in the company and in the blogosphere, then speak to the lower of the two. So, if you are a new employee but experienced blogger or an established employee but novice blogger, keep quiet in both, i.e. state your feelings more mutedly than you might if just complaining to a good friend or loved one. It’s the public nature of blogs that makes them so dangerous from a job security standpoint.

Many employees that lost their jobs, would not have, were their comments and photos kept offline. Under the guise of “Don’t Get Fired” we offer the following for employees who blog:

• You are personally liable for anything said in the blog – you might have a great company, one that stands up for employees and employees’ rights. Even this company, though, won’t go to bat for you if what you write leads to a lawsuit. More importantly, you will be the one sued, not the company.

• Do not be anonymous; own your identity and associations – I know of a blogger that maintains an anonymous blog, but the author discusses topics completely outside of the company, industry and any clients, prospects, competitors, etc.. When in doubt, and especially if you blog about any of the just mentioned relationships.

• If you want a very personal blog, do not discuss work; do not use anything from work or reference it – a delta flight attendant was fired for posting some suggestive pictures. By TV standards, especially daytime soaps, the pictures were nothing special, but they were taken on company property and the astute viewer could make out which company it was. Many laid back companies would have not taken issue, but putting on a big corporation, that is public, and not tech savvy, it’s understandable why they reacted the way they did.

• Expect that your employer will find and read your blog – it’s easy to think that your blog will be seen just by you and those you show, but it almost never works that way. The best bet is to write as though your boss, your boss’ boss, and legal will read it.

• So, while it’s your blog, you have a much larger constituency than just you, your friends, and family – this is really just a reminder that you will feel a sense of ownership to your blog, and you should. It will reflect you, but just because it is a blog doesn’t mean anything goes. You are not an island; blogging may feel like driving a car with its control and outer layer, but like road rage, blog rage is bad. Play well with others on the road, in this case the blogosphere.

• Rule: If it can go in a commercial, it’s ok to share; when in doubt, do not disclose – this speaks to a blogger that got fired from Google in just one week. He didn’t say anything bad, but he was much too transparent with his information. That’s why this rule exists to help provide a sanity check on what to share about your company, when in doubt. It’s complimentary to the guideline in Part One that discusses posting criticisms.

Here are some examples of what not to say on your blog:

• “I hate that the Tech Producer doesn’t know how to use email. He’s the goddamn TECH Producer, for crying out loud. Dude just wanders all over the office, on foot, asking for updates and fixes to bugs only he can replicate.”

• “You’ve got to be kidding right? You can’t just hand me a 17-slide PowerPoint document and expect me to ‘make it look good.’ You may as well gorge out my eyes with burning sabers of methane gas and ceremoniously sacrifice my body over an open barbecue pit in the name of good taste.”

• “…demands employees that are 90th percentile material, so what’s with the 50th percentile compensation? the packages would’ve been decent when the company was pre-IPO, but let’s be honest here… a stock option with a strike price of $188 just doesn’t have the same value as the ones of yesteryear. even microsoft adjusted their base salaries to 66th percentile years ago…”

Here are some best practices for employees who blog. This by no means a comprehensive list, just some to get the flavor.

• Do not comment on current or potential clients – this probably goes with out saying, but it was the mistake I made. I commented on what I thought was a benign topic, one that was unrelated to anything we might do together and one that did not give out any useful information (nothing on pricing, policies, associations, etc.) Nonetheless, that they were mentioned at all was enough to cause discomfort. Learn from my mistake and play it safe by keeping your clients out of your blog unless you get their permission.

• Don’t make your company look bad; objectivity is essential – again, it might be your blog, but you aren’t the only one reading it; there is no law that says you can’t be judged by your colleagues and superiors for what you say.

• Put a disclaimer – I highly recommend adding something such as “Please note that the opinions on this site are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of my employer.” It won’t keep you out of legal trouble, but it’s the blogging equivalent of not talking, walking, or jiggling change when someone is about to hit a shot on the golf course.

• Don’t plagiarize and always cite – Most people wouldn’t want to see them being the subject of a post title on a well-read blog such as my friend Josh was in TechCrunch’s “Go to hell, Josh Stomel.” Were Josh given a little guidance prior to blogging, the incident could have been avoided. Fortunately, it’s now just an internal joke, but other employee bloggers might not have the same fortune.

• Keep it PG-13 at worst – blogging might be about personal expression, but learn to express your views as though your young nieces were present. Keep the F-bombs unarmed.

• Have something to say – if you are going to run a blog where you mention your job, your company, etc., try to add value rather than just take up space because you can. If you want to just play, then keep it purely personal and act like a contestant on a game show, i.e. don’t mention your company’s name if discussing your work.

To conclude, here are some things to remember from our discussion on employee blogging.

• Employers, it will happen with or without your permission

• Standards have yet to fully emerge – this suggests employers should default to more flexibility and employees should default to added caution

• Employee blogging is more powerful than a company blog but more risky – they have more power because they often are seen as impartial, but riskier because companies can’t specifically control what will be said.

• Many of the bloggers fired wouldn’t have been were it not for the public nature of blogging – you can blog, have fun, and share without firing. Employee bloggers can be well-known and have a large following. The Journal of Science, though, will never have the same readership as Star or People. As an employee, if you want to say whatever and try to get a huge following, just realize you might do so at the expense of your job.

Post Script -
My Friend Cliff Kurtzman adds the following points:
1. Employees should remember that defamation, copyright infringement, and breach of privacy claims can apply to blogging just as in other activities. You mentioned "don't plagiarize," but a lot of people (including you initially) don't realize that you can't copy other people's content (other than brief excerpts used in review) even if you give full attribution. You can't say things that are untrue and that cause harm to the reputation of others, even if you have reason to believe they are true (e.g., saying that so-and-so was fired when they really resigned).  You can't say "So-and-so told me that the CEO steals from children" if the underlying allegation is untrue, even if So-and-so really told you that it was so, because it still casts a false impression that causes harm.

2. For public companies, employees need to be given training on Sarbanes-Oxley and its implications for bloggers. It is all too easy for a low level employee to make an off-the-cuff remark (about a planned upgrade to a product, for example) that could be construed as an improper disclosure and get the company into real legal trouble.

3. I said "More importantly, you will be the one sued, not the company."
According to Cliff. That is wrong. If someone is out for the $$$, they are going to sue both you and the company, no matter what disclaimers are there. The company almost always has deeper pockets, and a lawsuit is time consuming and annoying. Plaintiff's attorneys know this, and they know companies will often settle to avoid the time and bother. So they will sue the company if what you blog has anything to do with your line of business.
- Either way, not good.

Now, for the slight advertorial - If you like what Cliff has to say, you should also know that he provides in-house seminars to companies that want to give their employees orientation on the online advertising industry and all the various concerns employees should be aware of when they represent their company online. Contact him through his site.