Both Fred Wilson (avc.blogs.com) and I (thisisgoingtobebig.typepad.com) blog. We also, in our day jobs, work for a venture capital firm called Union Square Ventures, where Fred is a partner and I am the analyst. There are lots of sticky issues around our blogging. First off, much of what we see in terms of business plans is confidentential, and entrepreneurs need to trust us with that. Second, we have to be careful about who speaks for whom. I certainly can't always speak for the company--I'm not a partner. Fred can't always speak for the company, because he's not the only partner. (Brad Burnham is the other, non-blogging USV partner.) The answer? Well, this probably only works in a small company, but for the most part, we rely on our better professional judgement. We know what is confidential and what is not, and we were all dealing with this issue long before we were blogging. We also discuss posts with each other that we feel might be close to the line. Other than that, we feel like there is always going to be a message being communicated about us... sometimes from us, sometimes, not. We speak at conferences, we talk on the phone, we talk in meetings. Whether we're blogging or not blogging is a matter of reach, not change of substance. We still need to observe accepted rules of professionalism. I tried to write a blogging policy, but it was just too rigid and too forced for the way we respect each other's professionalism.

Not to get off the subject here, but wasn't Niall Kennedy the same guy that was reprimanded at Technorati for posting what he termed 'art' and others termed 'offensive'?

Is he merely pushing the limits?
Or did they like the media coverage and decide to try it again?

Beyond the question of whether or not there should be guidelines, is it a problem if the same guy continues to push the envelope and get media coverage for the company?

Oop. My apologies. It appears the article is about the same incident. But it seems to have just taken a while to hit the media.

Sorry!

@Deb

You mean traditional media (not blog media) right?
Is the rejoinder satirical :)

Blogging is going to become a bigger issue and as a result you will find policies being written to cover them. One big issue I have found though is, not many HR people have any idea what a "blog" is. And many are not savy enough on the Internet to even know how to look for what employees may be saying about their companies. We are going to run into many more "freedom of speech" issues unless companies have specific policies to protect themselves. It will probably be wild and wooley for awhile.

In Singapore a government scholar was recently attacked in the old media for his racist comments on his private blog. He has in the meantime taken down his post, but we're still waiting for possible action from the scholarship agency. Some basic review information from Singapore Ink which I referred to in my own blog, and a link to an actual news article from there.
Anyway, blog entries seems to increasingly quoted by old media in reports (case: US elections and some alleged forgeries?) and I guess we have to resign ourselves to having blog entries be taken as possible statements to the world at large. Will those disclaimers on the bottom of emails (those that say that unintended recipients should delete mails and that the writers' views may not represent their companies') be enough? Or will employment lawyers be dickering over whether an employee took "sufficient care" to conceal his identity?

I posit that the onus should not just be on companies to enforce policies on their employees, but also on the community at large to recognize that blogs need to be protected much in the same way that conversations are. Things like "off the record" and "don't quote me on this" might figure very prominently on blogs of the working class in the near future...

I absolutely think corporations should have some guidelines around blogging. However, they shouldn't have to re-create the wheel--I'd think that most companies have a some sort of policy around external communications. Blogging should simply be an addition/expansion to those policies.

I think that as soon as a blogger identifies himself or herself with their company then it is within the company's right to regulate that Blog in some fashion. Whether the person puts a, "this is my personal opinion" statement or not they have tacitly connected themselves with a corporate entity. At that point the corporate entity has a stake in what is said.

Why do these people continue to ensure corporate association is known?

Please - use common sense. The rule of thumb I used to teach students re: email was 'if you wouldn't print in the local paper, don't put it in an email'. Overly simplistic, probably; effective for communicating that once you put it out there, it's out there - yup.

If you wouldn't be saying at the local pub without looking over your shoulder it certainly doesn't belong on a blog.

Most companies will probably have to create policies, but I am not sure they should have to. We all know the general rules regarding corporate privacy, new web technology is often just a convenient way to pretend we don't. New rules do not need to be written, the old ones still apply.

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