As the number of employee weblogs (also known as blogs) hosted on corporate websites increases, the line between the personal and corporate blogger begins to blur. By nature, blogs reflect the views of the human blogger. Blogs are participatory, in that they can be read and commented on by anyone. When commented upon, they also reflect the views of the reader. The Internet is their playground and the blogosphere is their community. Bloggers live by their own code of ethics, whereby their community determines the creditability of blog postings. Such is the culture of a participatory environment.

Personal Blogs and Corporate Ethics

An email message that contains inappropriate content, such as proprietary information, can result in corporate audits or lawsuits. Blog content is no different. On January 28, 2005, Mark Jen was fired from Google because he discussed Google's financial performance on his personal blog. (Read Mark's post on the infamous blog faux pas at: http://blog.plaxoed.com/2005/01/26/oops [1]).

Employee Blogs on a Corporate Website

Employee blogs posted to a corporate website reflect upon the company. Disclaimers, such as, "The opinions of the writers do not necessarily reflect the position of 'Company X' on these subjects," are ineffectual in managing public opinion. (The degree of legal protection supplied by a disclaimer is a separate matter.) By human nature, most readers perceive everything posted to the corporate site to be representing corporate values. As a result, except for a small number of progressive firms, most companies will pre-approve employees who wish to blog to the corporate site. Before posting, the blog entries often will be edited for sentence structure, misspellings and inflammatory language, while still attempting to preserve the blogger's personal style. Without such controls, companies risk damage to their public image.

Corporate Blogging Policies

For a majority of companies, blogging is a new phenomenon. Media coverage of high-profile scenarios, like Mark Jen and Google, has driven companies to evelop "Blogging Policies." (See samples at: www.corporate blogging.info/2004/06/corporate-blogging-policies.asp [2]).

What You Need to Do Now

Do not take an "ostrich approach." Whether your company endorses corporate-site blogging or not, any employee, contractor or individual associated with your company may be blogging about the company on their own.

If you do not have an electronic communications policy, develop one. A current email policy can be used as a starting point. The policy should focus on human behavior when communicating using any current and future electronic communication media.

Some media have unique characteristics, and it is prudent to mention them in the policy. For example, posting a blog exposes it (within nanoseconds) to everyone on the blogosphere.

Work with your legal counsel in developing any type of corporate business or technology policy, including factors related to blogging.

Most companies treat blogs as a distinct entity-resulting in a distinct policy. However, blogs are merely a type of electronic communication, as is email and instant messaging. Developing separate policies for each media type is laborious and dangerous. A company's "Code of Conduct" should apply to electronic communications no differently than it does to human communications. The "Plaxo Public Internet Communication Policy" (http://blog.plaxoed.com/2005/03 [3]) is a good example of addressing electronic communication usage, holistically. Its focus is not specific to a medium, but rather to human behavior when communicating electronically. MCG/MNP