Companies Aren't Just Smiles, Candy & Sunshine?

After reading Robert Scoble and Shel Israel's section on corporate blogs in the book "Naked Conversations", I began to think of all of the ways that a corporate blog could go awry. The guidelines on corporate weblogs seem obvious. Things are included such as "Tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth"; "Under-promise. Over deliver."; "Never change your weblog's URL"; "Never lie" [which seems ridiculous that this gets its own entry considering the first I mentioned]; "Be careful with legal issues"; etc. (Scoble & Israel 191-194) Some statements seem to contradict one another. For instance the "If your life is in turmoil and/or you're unhappy, don't write" and "your blog is your own". (Scoble and Israel 192-193) Don't most disgruntled people need to get their thoughts out? After all, if they are disgruntled they are going to, out of stress, explode and say things they shouldn't. I've seen this happen countless times. The Internet/blogs provide an easy way to do that in a quick manner. Then, the company has to play rebound and run damage control. Frequently this is disastrous and results in loss of business. After all, Scoble and Israel are just throwing ideas forward on what employee bloggers SHOULD follow. These are NOT absolute rules.

So, what must a company do to become immune to employee weblog damage? First off, realize that this is impossible; they must accept that in the real business world, companies can only take preventative measures, especially with the openness of the Internet. Second, there will always be disgruntled employees. Sure, it would be nice to think that a company is only smiles, candy and sunshine, but that would be a giant lie. Really, the only real other option is to set up filters (humans or otherwise) on all the employees’ blogs. Yet, this seems like a huge infraction of the first amendment and that it would cause the employees to be even more disgruntled. It would prevent the employees from publishing what is really on their mind, and providing a censor. Yet, they are sure to find their own way to publish whatever they want to say, such as publishing them under fake aliases. Eventually though the connection is sure to be discovered between the employee and the fake alias. What is put up on the Web is extremely difficult to pull off without any viewers. They are surely going to be fired and possibly find themselves in a long lawsuit.

What is a company to do? My disgruntled ITEC-333 class blog can be found at...

Rheingold, Howard. Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution. 1st Ed. Cambridge, MA: Basic Books, 2002

Scoble, Robert, and Shel Israel. Naked Conversations. 1st Ed. Hoboken, NJ: Jon Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2006.