Work Blogging Rules of the Road

In the four years since I started this blog, I have worked for a couple of different places. In all that time, I have never identified where I work by name or anything stronger than cryptic references to the industry. I am going to change that, but under very specific conditions. First, the story:

I started this new job a few weeks ago. One of the things I have noticed as I read and listen to people talk about the business is that they want to get their name out more. The head researcher is someone who gets his name in articles and that is deemed of high value to the company. I sat down with my boss and asked him about this blog, would it be better for the company if I actually blogged about them? The conclusion we arrived at is that it is, but that I need to treat it similarly to how I would comport myself at a conference I attend as an employee and representative of the company.

With that said, here are the rules and facts of me and work blogging:

1. I am not a spokesman for my company. I am a developer, and while I have opinions they are never the official policy of my company. I am a steward of the reputation of my company, and I will attempt to be a good steward.
2. On the posts that are work related, I will moderate both my language and opinions. My natural hotheaded and foulmouthed tendencies will be suppressed. This is not for the blog as a whole, but for the specific times when I am mentioning my employer. I reserve the right to be a foulmouthed hothead most of the time.
3. Our work is somewhat sensitive, so there will have to be things that are left unsaid – of a technical nature and otherwise. On the flipside, I will not say anything about them that I don’t believe. If I am expressing an opinion, I actually hold that opinion. It will never be company spin. If I disagree, I will simply say nothing.
4. My goals of work blogging explicitly include contributing information back to the larger sphere of knowledge. It also explicitly includes some aspect of promotion or attention recognition for the firm. Take it all with a grain of salt, consider the source about this and everything, always. There is no one without any agenda, the best we can do is to be honest about what it is.
5. Rules might be amended or added as we go. This is new to me and I don’t presume that I can anticipate every issue that might arise. I’ll behave as professionally and ethically as I can, but cannot guarantee universal perfection.

Enough lawyering, let’s get blogging!