Jeremy Cole "On Employee Blogging"

I haven't written anything on the Mark Jen story, because like just about everyone who is writing about it, I don't have all the details.

Jeremy Cole remarked:

Basically, I always follow these basic criteria when I blog about work:

• Is it about anything sensitive in any way?
• Is it disrespectful to either your employer or any coworkers?
• Would you flinch in the slightest if your boss, his boss, all the way up to the CEO and the board of directors read it?

Those are exactly the same criteria I use, plus a fourth:

• If I were interviewing for a job, and the interviewer read this, would it present an inaccurate picture of me?

(Note that the criterion isn't "would it hurt my chances of getting an offer". If what I write paints me as someone you wouldn't want to hire, and it's accurate, then my blog is the least of my problems.)

And as Jeremy concludes, you're often not left with much company-related information that's bloggable. For example, there are a lot of very cool things going on at work, but they're not yet public knowledge, so I have to bite my metaphorical tongue (and usually end up writing something about Python instead).

On the other hand, I'm still lusting after one of the new lightweight headsets that we released last year (and thus can be talked about). All the cool kids have them here.