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Friday, June 17, 2005
Funny how bloggers getting canned is becoming a big thing lately when it happened to me three years ago today. (My former employer also spied on me for nearly a year!) I read in the USAToday here at the hotel a few days ago about this happening to others in the industry and how it’s really starting to become noticeable. I was pretty bummed with Union Safe (whom got bought out by Bank of the West a year later) for taking the path they did. While I was evidently at the cutting edge and years ahead of the USAToday article subjects in losing my job, Union Safe could have handled it much better. They could have used it as a learning experience instead of burying their head in the sand.
The USAToday article reflects a little of this learning thing but shows many companies are still at a loss. While I’ve been blogging for nearly four years, it’s not new enough that companies IT departments should be oblivious to this. They are the eyes and ears to a company and thus the T in CTO should be letting his legal people know so policies can be set. But like instant messaging, MP3’s, P2P, and other technologies related to the Internet, the majority of companies continue to show their inane ability to keep up. While they think it’s so expensive to have people like myself on staff who is up with the latest and greatest, they show in the end that damage control is more costly and allows for more egg to stick onto ones face.
I think companies do need to have policies on blogging. When I worked in Silicon Valley, I was constantly signing NDA’s (Non-disclosure Acts) to protect clients or vendors I was working with. I don’t see why companies can’t ask their own employees to do the same when it comes to blogging. I do believe we should all have the right to blog as we desire, but I have no problem with companies setting guidelines in reference to the company and that’s it. I don’t see a problem in them saying you can’t discuss issues with other employees, but I don’t think they have the right to say you can or can not discuss issues about others outside the company.
Corporate America needs to get their act together on this one and figure it out fast. With 10 billion blogs on the web and that figure growing, there’ll be a very larger problem sooner then later if they don’t. Learn from Union Safe and their bone-head mistake.