Watch Out Employers Your Employees Talk About You

Do you blog about your employer?  Does your employer have a “blogging policy”?  Do you identify yourself as “Joe Blogger Who Works At Widgets, Incorporated”?  If you raise an eyebrow at any of those questions and are unsure, you should find out those answers sooner rather than later.  Why - you ask?  In recent weeks, Cisco, a company that builds computer networking equipment, is being sued because one of their employees posted information about another company on their personal Blogger.com web site.

So, what exactly happened?  Here is the situation in a nutshell:

1. Blogger X works at Company Y.
2. Blogger X had a blog on Blogger.com and didn’t tell anyone who he was or whom he worked for.
3. Blogger X, being a knowledgeable person, wrote about the industry he worked in but not about his employer.
4. Over time, the blogger writes about other companies on their blog.  During this time he writes something about Company Z.
5. A year goes by and, poof, Blogger X tells everyone who he is.
6. Company Z, who has been reading the blog and have been unhappy about the content, rejoices as they now know who is writing the blog.
7. Company Z then sues Blogger X’s employer.

Sounds a bit weird, yes?  From a personal blogger’s perspective, it may be.  I think it is a mild wake up call for bloggers but a large wake up call for employers.  In the book, we talk about how a lot of companies like Microsoft, Dell, and Sun Micro Systems have great blogging communities.  But each of them have guidelines around how bloggers should act and behave on line.  Some go so far as to tell their employees how they should act even on social networking web sites.  (Don’t get me started on that rule....) The article on CNet, has a few summaries of what larger companies are doing with guidelines for bloggers.  Here are a few from that article.

Dell

Dell’s stance is perhaps the most similar to--and predates--Cisco’s. Bob Pearson, the computer maker’s vice president of communities and conversations, said the company prides itself on being one of the first companies to release a “clear transparency policy.”

That “online communication policy,” released in November 2006, sets standards for employees when they’re acting as “a delegate of the company.”

Specifically, they’re expected to disclose their association with Dell whenever they do any sort of blogging, social networking, Wikipedia entry-editing, or other online activities related to or on behalf of the company. If the subject matter crosses over into hobbies or people’s personal lives, “there would be no rationale for us to get involved in that,” Pearson said in a phone interview Tuesday.

Sun

Sun Microsystems, which hosts blogs from CEO Jonathan Schwartz and some 4,000 other employees, has had a blogging policy in place since 2004. It broadly prohibits discussing a wealth of “non-public” information, including financial data, code, personal information about other individuals, all manner of confidential information, and “work-related legal proceedings or controversies.”

Google

Google similarly recommends, but does not require, such disclosures, said spokeswoman Sunny Gettinger. (Google said it has an internal “communications” policy but doesn’t make it public, although its general employee code of conduct is.)

Yahoo

Yahoo is arguably even gentler, but its policy has “been successful in providing employees with guidance on blogging practices with respect to the company,” said spokeswoman Nicki Dugan. Its guidelines, issued in 2005 (PDF), decree two main rules: don’t reveal proprietary information, and be cautious about posting exaggerations, obscenities, or other characterizations that could invite litigation.

So, you bloggers out there, the best thing you should do when you start blogging is to check out what your employer says about it.  Maybe, you should offer to pen a blog for your employer if they don’t have one?  Who knows where that could lead!

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