Yesterday I heard that the university I work for is pondering what its policy on blogging should be. The worry is that, if there are ever going to be any blogs associated with the university, ‘people’ can potentially write anything they like, and the uni could be held liable for it. And so they are discussing what the blogging policy should be, and what the guidelines should cover. I refrained from saying that by the time they decide this, blogging could be quite different from what we know it as now. It wasn’t the right time for facetious comments. Not when the Uber Boss was the one reporting on this. I did say that it would be very difficult for any organisation to control what people are going to say or write about it – to which Uber Boss said she agreed and “Besides, many people already have blogs, don’t they, CW?â€
She was referring to My Other Blog, the one work knows about, and on which I post Links and Information of Potential Interest to Librarians. In case you are commending me for my wisdom and restraint, at this point I very stupidly blurted out that yes, I do already have a blog, but it ain’t a patch on my personal blog. It was like a scene from The Simpsons where Homer tells his mind to shut up, and his mind ignores him and commits the faux pas anyway. ¡Ay caramba! (I mean, D’OH!!!)
And then this morning, while trawling through my Bloglines feeds, I followed a link from The Road to Surfdom which pointed to someone’s farewell blog post. What’s interesting about the reason this person was quitting his blog is the fact that he has a new job, and “one of the conditions is that I will not be allowed to blog, or indeed write much on my own.†I wonder what sort of job would set a condition like that. Something in security or law enforcement perhaps?? I wonder if this is the shape of things to come…
On a different note, requiescat in pace, Professor L. Anne Clyde.
Categories: blogging
5 Comments
Restrictions imposed on employees such as the non-blogging one that you mention don’t surprise me. To me it seems like a variation on the no-porn-at-work rule. Porn is extreme, i know, but both are on the scale of what’s considered inappropriate, or not a good use of company time. That said, i’d better get back to work. 😉
It’s one thing for an employer to say that you can’t blog at work or blog about work in an identifiable manner, but it would be completely unacceptable and oppressive for an employer to ban all employee blogging done outside of work time, not using work equipment, not giving out any information which could reveal anything about the employer. There’s no excuse for that – except, as you mention, if somebody worked in law enforcement or intelligence. I would refuse to work for such an employer. It’s not that blogging is the most important thing in the world, but if they ban blogging, what would be next?
I heard journalists-writers are not allowed to keep blogs. Especially those that have articles that they will publish later.
Ok here are a few things an employer can crack down on:
1. Blogging during work hours
2. Blogging about your job, co-workers and the company’s dealings and clients
But actually saying that you can’t blog even when outside work hours, even when you are not blogging about work etc (ie. point 2 above), I think that’s a bit draconian. There are 2 distinct examples I can think of: soldiers blogging about their operations and journalists blogging their articles. But again they are blogging about their *jobs* so the restriction is reasonable. Other than that, I don’t see how they can justify it.
And about you doing a Homer moment, heh…I could actually picture it in my head. 😛
cherry I can’t imagine anyone being stupid enough to use the company pc to look at porn… that’s just asking for trouble, imho!
hi morgan, I agree with you – if my employer told me no blogging I think I would start looking for another employer quick smart. I don’t have a problem with banning blogging on work time, on work equipment, and giving out work info, but if blogging is banned, well logically this could spread to all other forms of expression as a private individual. What about writing to a newspaper? Or writing a book in your spare time? What about maintaining a personal website? Not a blog, but you could still express yourself…
israd I guess it’s fair enough for a journo’s employer to place some restrictions on them, but in some ways I wonder if it’s just a case of journalism not keeping up with the changes technology is bringing to writing and publishing… I would have thought that allowing a journalist to write would be a good thing – practising their craft, and so on…
mooiness I agree. I do avoid blogging at work. I do occasionally read the comments posted here but I dont usually reply until I’m at home. That said, I’m lucky in that I’ve been working on the RSS/blogging/wiki/podcasting project at work so I can justify reading some blogs during work hours 🙂