Friday, March 17, 2006

Advice to bloggers

Blogger Help : How Not to Get Fired Because of Your Blog This article (from the Google Blogger help pages) is useful but an odd mix. The title is self-explanatory, but is it a way to guide people to avoid inadvertenly breeching company and legal issues (for example posting pictures of colleagues or articles giving confidential details of company projects); or is it a way to advise people of how to blog at work without an employer noticing; or is it advice as to how bloggers can persuade a company to encourage blogging/and or have a blogging policy? As it is part of a help service, I think this article is presenting a confusing message, and that Google Blogger needs to get its ethical act together. I was directed to the article on the assumption that it was going to be policy and legal advice, and largely it is. But if that's the intention of the article, Google blogger should not also within the same text provide explicit cheats, such as how to switch screens if you see your boss approaching. Fair enough to do that, but in a separate piece, please.