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Business Tip of the Month

Business Tip
of the Month
For the month of August 2005

Is your business being blogged?

Is your business being discussed in employee blogs? Before you answer, let’s explain what a “blog” is. It’s a new word, coined from the Internet and just making its way into dictionaries. It comes from web log, and refers to a personal journal that’s posted for all to see on the Internet.

Sometimes blogs are just an ongoing diary, sometimes they chronicle special events such as the birth of a baby or a vacation, and sometimes they express political or other opinions. And, of course, some bloggers talk about events and activities in their workplace. That’s when blogs become an issue for managers and business owners.

Businesses have reacted to being mentioned in a blog in various ways. In a few high-publicity cases, employees have been fired for writing about their employer. Other companies, often in the high tech field, have set up company web sites to encourage employee blogs. How your company responds depends on the circumstances. But every business should anticipate the problem and at least establish guidelines.

Some rules are obvious. It’s clearly not acceptable to make comments about other employees or to reveal confidential information about the company. Employees sometimes forget that what they put in a blog can potentially be read by anyone on the Internet. Remind employees that anything they write essentially becomes public information. Your policies should also cover the issue of blogging on company time. You might want to expand existing policies on employee use of computers to cover blogging activities.

Beyond the items that are obviously unacceptable, choosing the right policies can be tricky. It’s not always easy or desirable to control what employees choose to say in their free time. You may decide to discourage employee blogging. Or you may decide it is bound to happen and try to channel and control it. In either case, it’s important to think about the issue, develop a policy in advance, and then communicate the guidelines to your employees.

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