Wednesday, March 15, 2006

Company of bloggers

Micro Persuasion: Blogger Firings Down, Hirings Up? Steve Rubel reports good news for bloggers -- some statistics to show that there is a "decrease" the numbers of people being fired by their companies for blogging. Actually, the "statistics" seem to be a trace of the number of posts matching the search term "fired for blogging" in the past 360 days, so much may have been missed. If it is a real decrease, Steve thinks it results from fear of bad publicity, increased tolerance for bloggers, and/or the fact that companies may actually be hiring bloggers. He doesn't think that the figures result from more companies having blog policies, though I agree with him that it would be good if they did. Or would it? The poor World Weary Detective was not fired (I hope), 'merely' forced to shut down by the introduction of his employer's blogging policy. If these policies, where they do exist, are such that blogging employees feel too constrained to continue, then there seems something askew in the particular company's employee-employer culture.