Blogging has become a hot issue. Many companies have published guidelines for their employees or have set up internal rules about publishing information related to the companies activities or products.
About time someone compared the policies already made up so that companies could have an overview of what is important and maybe see some sort of pattern.
Fredrik Wacka has compared and categorized the corporate blogging policies and guidelines of IBM, Yahoo! (pdf), Hill & Knowlton, Plaxo, Thomas Nelson, Feedster, Groove and Sun.
[...]“it’s interesting to find what all of them consider important — and perhaps even more interesting are some of the more unusual pieces of advice/rules.”
- The Core; all companies- You’re personally responsible
- Abide by existing rules
- Keep secrets
- Be nice - The Common; approximately half of them- Add value
- Respect copyright
- Follow the law
- Cite and link
- Discuss with your manager - The Unusual; limited in number- You can write on company time
- Our goal
- You may disagree with the boss
- Stop blogging if we say so
- Contact PR
Interesting remark : Only Yahoo! states something that should be in every guideline to blogging : what if an employee’s blog suddenly draws the media’s attention?
“Example, Yahoo! (pdf) : If a member of the media contacts you about a Yahoo!-related blog posting or requests Yahoo! information of any kind, contact PR.”
Good stuff :
“Example, Feedster : …please be aware that the company may request that you temporarily confine your website or weblog commentary to topics unrelated to the company (or, in rare cases, that you temporarily suspend your website or weblog activity altogether) if it believes this is necessary or advisable to ensure compliance with securities regulations or other laws.”
“Example, Plaxo: You may not attack personally fellow employees, authors, customers, vendors, or shareholders. You may respectfully disagree with company actions, policies, or management.”
Read the entire post on [CorporateBlogging]
ifeanyi
February 1, 2006 at 2:22 pm
You probably won’t really feel like going out or doing too much early in the day. But things should start to pick up a bit later in the day when you might be able to resolve a few things. You’re also likely to start feeling much more sociable, and you’ll probably feel like sharing all your thoughts and feelings with everyone around you tonight.