Corporate Policy on Employee Weblogs

It is imperative that a corporate policy on employee weblogs be existent so that company lawyers will not worry that someone could take a casual remark or a personal opinion as official policy. As a first step, it would be wise that a notice is put on one’s weblog that makes clear that the views expressed in the weblog are not (necessarily) shared by the ‘parenting organisation’. For example, the notice on Ray Ozzie’s blog reads:

The views expressed on this website are mine alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of Groove Networks, Inc.

Similarly, Jorgen Thelin's weblog, The Architect.co.uk, mentions that:

This is a personal weblog by Jorgen Thelin, Chief Scientist at Cape Clear Software Inc. The opinions expressed here represent my own and not necessarily those of my employer.

And Tim Oren who is a Venture Capitalist with a weblog, states:

This blog is kept by Tim Oren. I'm a partner at the venture capital firm that hosts it, Pacifica Fund…. What I write here is what interests me, and is my own opinion. I make no pretence to objectivity. A VC without a point of view is a useless VC. My opinions don't necessarily reflect those of my partners or the firm, something I find out regularly. Likewise my opinions don't necessarily represent those of other venture capitalists, firms, or the industry as a whole (if there is such a thing). It's all mine, love it or hate it.

That is fairly straightforward and in most likelihood there will be no problems when a single person-employee is responsible for posting to a weblog, especially when the weblog is meant to be a personal project or hobby. The tricky part is with corporate weblogs, when more than a couple of employees post their thoughts to the blog. Regardless of whether the blog is inward - looking (hidden behind a firewall and thus accessible only to employees) or outward - looking (public and accessible to everyone), consider a corporate weblog that serves for brainstorming among twenty employees. This is not a wild dream. Instead of launching ten separate weblogs by ten individual employees which is the solo approach followed by Macromedia, a company may choose that a group weblog in which ten employees will be responsible for posting daily content and stimulate discussion is more likely to result in a vibrant community. It’s not hard to understand why a company would go for such a blogging strategy. The more interesting the content and the livelier the discussion is, the more chances are that an online community will coalesce around a weblog. And beyond any doubt, ten people will probably have more ideas and thoughts to write about than a single person would, even though in the process a few of them may stand out as more knowledgeable or more attention-grabbing individuals. Moreover, as the burden of maintaining the weblog is distributed across several people, redundancy is weaved into the system. Redundancy, in this case, means that even when an employee is unable to fulfil her blogging duties due to other work obligations or for whatever reason (ie. sudden illness or maternity leave), the remaining bloggers will ensure that the conversation does not die off and the weblog does not stagnate in the absence of fresh and frequently updated content.

In a discussion I had with some friends regarding the implications of such a group weblog, it was evident that some people do not share the belief that a group weblog will (most of the times) be more interesting when compared to a single person’s blog. As a friend pointed out, she ‘d rather associate with a blog that expresses a sole author’s views with an attitude rather than having to deal with what she likens to a corporate melting pot adhering to strict corporate guidelines. But a melting pot does not have to be compliant with totalitarian guidelines or to wrap views up in a homogeneous manner tailored for easy digestion. A group weblog should not be seen as an aggregation service catering for those lazy enough to bother checking more than a handful of weblogs. If the group bloggers collaborate toward a shared goal, the diversity inherent in their interactions will metamorphose the blog into a process of cross-fertilisation among individual ideas and thoughts.

A shared goal provides context and doesn’t have to be an abstract concept. In the case of the community weblog Slashdot, the shared goal, or the context if you prefer, is established through only six words prominently displayed at the top of the site: news for nerds, staff that matters. These six words convey the purpose of Slashdot. Come to think of it, it is a sort of a mission statement, but unlike most corporate mission statements which are seldom meant to be discussed or criticised in the open, this one is meant to lie at the core of the occurring conversations.

It is this process of cross-fertilisation among individual posts that is most amenable to external top-down control, perhaps in the form of undemocratic and authoritative moderation, which in turn can backfire and stifle innovation. Managers should resist the temptation to control because attempts to control the conversations can kill them or send them underground (Cothrel & Williams 1999). “The real question is whether the benefits of control are worth the potential drawback of dampening the creative spirit that fosters innovation – one of the reasons for having online communities in the first place” (Ibid: 57). To make sure this doesn’t happen, Meg Hourihan (2002) suggests that acceptability guidelines be established. Apart from satisfying Human Resources and lawyers, these guidelines will ensure that the removal of inappropriate content (such as a post saying nasty things about the company’s competitors or a colleague that climbs up the corporate ladder because of consistently backstabbing others), is not been interpreted as censorship. As she says, “you’ll find people aren't much interested in contributing if they feel their content may be censored” without being given proper explanations.

Groove Networks has such a corporate policy in place. Although the weblogs maintained by Groove employees, including its CEO, are publicly accessible, the set of guidelines could also be applicable to weblogs hidden behind the corporate firewall. In short, the policy states:

1. put a notice which makes clear that the views expressed are your own 2. do not disclose any proprietary or confidential information. 3. be respectful to the company, fellow workers and competitors and 4. we may ask you to stop if we feel that what you blog about is what we pay you for 5. we may ask you to confine your weblog commentary to topics unrelated to the company 6. we may ask you to stop if we believe it is necessary or advisable to ensure compliance with securities regulations or other laws.

Apparently, the last three guidelines are open to interpretation. While some people might feel that such guidelines are more restrictive than they should be, there are also people who regard them as essential. Interestingly, a while ago, a journalist on CNN’s payroll, named Kevin Sites, was asked to suspend his war blogging from Iraq. Since Kevin Sites was the only professional journalist blogging about the war live from Iraq, the reaction from scores of bloggers that disapproved of CNN’s move was in the least anticipated. On the other hand, there were also some bloggers who took a more balanced view on the grounds that real world constraints such as squandering scarce and expensive bandwidth dictated CNN’s seemingly authoritative decision to temporarily shut down Site’s blog.