From Yahoo News:
International Business Machines Corp. and Sun Microsystems Inc. have instituted blogging policies. Both focus on helping employees write entertaining blogs without revealing company secrets or offending suppliers and customers. IBM discourages anonymous blogging or covert marketing. Sun urges employees to expose their personalities but warns that “a blog is a public place and you should avoid embarrassing your readers or the company.”
We’ve seen this before, but it points to a growing trend. Included in this article are some interesting observations about “blogging as if your future boss was looking over your shoulder” and also “expect that a company will do an Internet search” as a potential employee.
Tim Bray, Sun’s director of Web technologies, said the company realized it needed the new rules as it prepared to encourage employee blogging and discovered an impediment. Sun had a policy “that no one can say anything publicly without prior legal approval.” With the new rules in place, more than 1,500 employees now have blogs hosted on the company’s computer server.
Talk about communicating….1500 bloggers!
In Newtown Square, Pa., software maker SAP America Inc., which wants employees to blog, is updating its media policy to include blogging. “We encourage people to communicate, but to stay within their area of expertise,” said Steve Bauer, vice president of global communications. As for private blogging, “anything that would really go against our values as a company would be certainly discouraged.”
Encouraging blogging…that’s interesting.
Jonathan Segal, a Philadelphia employment lawyer, said that overly restrictive policies or publicity about company attacks on bloggers could hurt a company, particularly if it wanted creative young employees. “It may have the effect of driving talent away,” he said.
Looks like he’s read the Cluetrain Manifest0
Full article: Blogs can help boost a career or sink it – Yahoo! News: