Job blogs hold perils, opportunities
Bloggers walk a fine line when writing about jobs
By Hiawatha Bray, Globe Staff, 1/4/04
There are lots of reasons to be careful about using the Internet. Here's one more - the stuff you publish on your personal website could cost you your job.
Michael Hanscom learned the hard way. Hanscom worked at a printing shop in the Redmond, Wash., headquarters of Microsoft Corp. He's an avid ''blogger'' - one of about 2 million people worldwide who publish Internet diaries about their activities and interests. Bloggers write about every imaginable topic, from politics to religion to sex. But some bloggers tackle perhaps the riskiest topic of all - their jobs.
That's how Hanscom found himself unemployed. Last October, he published in his blog a photo of a pallet of Apple Macintosh computers being delivered to Microsoft headquarters. The following week Hanscom was fired for allegedly violating a confidentiality agreement he'd signed when Microsoft hired him.
A Microsoft spokesman confirmed Hanscom's firing but declined to provide further details. The company said it does not have a blog policy.
Hanscom didn't respond to repeated interview requests by the Globe. But on his blog, Hanscom admitted that he may have gone over the line by publishing the location where Microsoft receives shipments of high-value merchandise.
''The picture itself might have been permissible,'' he wrote, ''but because I also mentioned that I worked at the MSCopy print shop, and which building it was in, it pushed me over the line.''
You could read Hanscom's fate as another case of a giant corporation throwing its weight around. But it's not that simple. Consider Microsoft employee Robert Scoble. He's a ''technology evangelist,'' promoting the company's upcoming Longhorn operating system software. But he does some of his most effective work in his spare time on his blog, The Scobleizer.
Scoble's blog offers an insider's view on current and future Microsoft products, unfettered by any restrictions except those he places on himself.
''I have absolutely no prior restraint on what I publish,'' said Scoble. That's why his blog, and those published by about 100 other Microsoft employees, attract thousands of readers in search of reliable inside information on the company.
Even as Microsoft fires a blogger like Hanscom for going too far, it tolerates others like Scoble, treating their hobby as a way to build a more personal relationship with its customers. The two cases show how the rise of blogging has created new opportunities and perils for workers and employers alike.
''Employee blogging, when done right, can be a wonderful tool for the employer's business,'' said Catherine Reuben, an employment law specialist and partner in the Boston law firm of Robinson & Cole. Workers who broadcast enthusiasm for their company's products are an obvious boon to the business. Bloggers also provide information and support to customers, at little or no cost to the company.
But there are dangers. Employee bloggers could publish confidential information or make disparaging remarks about colleagues and bosses.
''Just as you and I would not want someone to talk behind our back,'' said Reuben, ''I think employers may feel the same way.''
Perhaps the most blog-friendly company in America is Macromedia Inc., a multimedia software producer based in San Francisco. Blogging is at the core of Macromedia's customer marketing strategy. In 2002, as the company released a number of new products, it asked several employees to launch blogs where they could field questions from customers.
''We needed a mechanism to communicate incredibly quickly,'' said Tom Hale, Macromedia's senior vice president of business strategy. ''We hit upon the blog strategy as a mechanism to do that.''
Hale said the experiment succeeded beyond expectation.
''People really liked hearing directly from Macromedia experts, and getting really fast response,'' he said. Today there are at least 16 employee-run blogs providing assistance to Macromedia customers.
Through his blog, Macromedia product manager Mike Chambers gets a constant stream of suggestions from multimedia developers who use his company's products.
''This just became an extension of what I was doing before,'' said Chambers, ''but a lot more efficient extension.''
Macromedia is a textbook example of how employee blogging can benefit an employer.
''If a blogger can generate a buzz about a company or a product area, that then drives people to at least consider buying,'' said Pamela Samuelson, director of the Berkeley Center for Law & Technology at the law school of the University of California at Berkeley.
But a blogger who violates company secrets, or one whose blog contains tasteless or offensive comments, could end up doing more harm than good.
''I think there's less problem with people revealing illegally confidential information, than about people using bad judgment about what kinds of things to say in public,'' Samuelson said.
Such blunders could haunt a blogger far into the future. Blogs, like everything else published on the World Wide Web, are indexed by search services like Google. That means that years from now, an injudicious comment published on a blog can come back to haunt the author if a prospective employer comes across it.
''They Google the employee and they see the person's blog, and they say, this person doesn't look stable,'' said Reuben.
Companies that accept employee bloggers, like Microsoft and Macromedia, know that exerting total control over the content of such blogs would destroy the very spontaneity that makes a blog interesting.
''We have to trust Mike that he knows what his community wants to hear and needs to hear,'' said Macromedia's Hale. ''And we have to trust Mike that he's going to do what's good for the company.''
Few companies have created official guidelines for employees who blog about their work. But Reuben says there are a number of common-sense principles that apply to workers and bosses alike.
Employers shouldn't be too quick to discipline a worker for ''improper'' blogging, specialists say.
''Get counsel before you take any employment action because of a blog,'' said Reuben.
Even though employers have great leeway in firing decisions, they can't always fire somebody for something he or she said. A worker complaining about job conditions might in some cases be protected by the National Labor Relations Act, or by whistle-blower laws.
Reuben also has advice for the would-be blogger with no desire to lose his or her job. She cited the classic rule of the Internet: ''Don't say something that you would not want an employer or potential employer to see.''
In addition, don't blog on company time or equipment. Wait until you get home.
Before blogging about your job, find out exactly what your company considers confidential information. Talk to your manager, or the human resources department, and get specific guidance on what you can and can't say. If possible, get the answer in writing.
If this seems more trouble than it's worth, refrain from blogging about work. Or you can simply write what you please and take your chances. It might work. But then, as Michael Hanscom can attest, it might not.
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