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Tuesday, September 20, 2005

Caution: Your boss is reading your blog

Here's a follow-up to the McNulty Blogging article I posted a while back with some very good advise on Blogging with wisdom. Here are the points, the article follows the points. - Dave

News You Can Use: Safe Blogging Tips

• Don't write anything you wouldn't want your boss or your mother to read.

• Your words could last for years, so keep future jobs and relationships in mind.

• Never divulge company secrets. That's grounds for firing.

• Avoid saying anything that could hurt your employer's business or reputation.

• Whistle-blogging -- complaining about discrimination or illegal activity at work -- may be protected activity, but you'll be on firmer ground if you go through company channels or contact the appropriate government agency first.

• There is no right to free speech in private employment. Think about that if you're tempted to express controversial opinions, use offensive language or tell the world about your private life and fantasies.

• You are more vulnerable if you blog on company equipment at work than if you use your own computer at home.

• Some groups recommend anonymous blogging, but that can be challenging. Revealing a few stray facts -- your birthday, for instance -- can trip you up. Telling friends about the blog can blow your cover, too.

Article

Sure, it could help your career -- but it can also get you fired

Author: STACEY BURLING

Terrence Ryan knew Scott McNulty in passing at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School, where they both work.

But it was McNulty's blog, or Web log, that made Ryan take a harder look. It showed Ryan that McNulty, a systems administrator, really knew computers. More important, it revealed his "geeky love of technology," a personal quality that "tends to work really well in our department," Ryan said.

Because of the blog, Ryan offered McNulty, 28, of Philadelphia, a promotion to systems programmer on a team responsible for information-technology services. McNulty took it.

He still writes his blog -- a blend of his musings on the personal and technical at blankbaby.typepad.com -- knowing that several of his co-workers and his bosses read it. "It's had a very positive impact on my career," he said.

About 10 million Americans now write blogs, ranging from the confessional and edgy to the technical and mundane, estimates Lee Rainie, director of the Pew Internet & American Life Project. Thirty-five million read them.

For businesses, blogs and other forms of personal Internet communication constitute a new frontier fraught with promise and peril. On the one hand, companies are scrambling to use them as a recruiting and marketing tool, and are encouraging some employees to blog. On the other, they are wondering how to deal with the damage that current and former employees and dissatisfied customers can do on the Web.

The result is a "mild level of social panic," Rainie said. "The lawyers and the marketers are, in many cases, at least in covert war with each other."

For the moment, much of the news falls into the "cautionary tale" category. In August, a California automobile club fired 27 workers for posting messages on the Web that offended co-workers. Not long before, a Boston University instructor was fired for blogging about a distractingly attractive student, a blogging nanny was fired for telling too much about herself and her employers, and a New York beauty editor lost a new job because of blogs about the fashion industry.

Andy Fox, a senior investigator who conducts background checks for Investigative Group International, said Internet searches on prospective employees were now commonplace. For high-profile jobs, he said, "I'll run everything down on Google if it goes to 27 o's." Each o in a Google search is worth 10 entries.

International Business Machines Corp. and Sun Microsystems Inc. have instituted blogging policies. Both focus on helping employees write entertaining blogs without revealing company secrets or offending suppliers and customers. IBM discourages anonymous blogging or covert marketing. Sun urges employees to expose their personalities but warns that "a blog is a public place and you should avoid embarrassing your readers or the company."

Tim Bray, Sun's director of Web technologies, said the company realized it needed the new rules as it prepared to encourage employee blogging and discovered an impediment. Sun had a policy "that no one can say anything publicly without prior legal approval." With the new rules in place, more than 1,500 employees now have blogs hosted on the company's computer server.

Jonathan Segal, a Philadelphia employment lawyer, said that overly restrictive policies or publicity about company attacks on bloggers could hurt a company, particularly if it wanted creative young employees. "It may have the effect of driving talent away," he said.

Some companies have begun monitoring what is said about them in blogs or other Internet sites. But employment lawyers said big companies are unlikely to have the time or desire to regularly read every employee's blog. People are more likely to get in trouble when a meddlesome co-worker or offended customer tells higher-ups.

All bloggers, they said, would be wise to write as if their bosses, future bosses or grandmothers were reading over their shoulders. While many currently are recommending that bloggers with incendiary messages write anonymously, some experts say that won't work if a company really wants to find out who you are. And it won't look good once you're caught.

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