AIM, August 23rd">Questions to be Answered from AIM, August 23rd

9 Responses to “Questions to be Answered from AIM, August 23rd”

1. Phillip Ow Says:
   August 23rd, 2007 at 9:53 pm

   Dear Nick,

   Thank you for a most insight­ful present­a­tion at AIM. I down­loaded the present­a­tion but was unable to access it. could you send me the present­a­tion in ppt?

   Thanks

   Phil­lip

2. hodgenick Says:
   August 23rd, 2007 at 10:08 pm

   Phil­lip

   I’ve added a Power­Point in the pre­vi­ous ver­sion — plus a small note on the Com­pat­ib­il­ity Pack

   Nick

3. Susan Dyster Says:
   August 24th, 2007 at 8:36 am

   Your AIM present­a­tion was very thought-provoking!

   You dis­cussed the need for an authen­tic voice when enga­ging with oth­ers online as well as the fact that people are cau­tious about what they say to avoid get­ting sacked/becoming unem­ploy­able in their industry.
   This reminded me of some­thing I heard about recruit­ers using candidate’s myspace pages as part of the screen­ing pro­cess — you have a boozy photo of your­self on myspace & your applic­a­tion gets shred­ded.
   Where is the line between per­sonal and pro­fes­sional in this form of com­mu­nic­a­tion? Does it mat­ter if there is one? Does a cor­por­ate policy on blog­ging restrict people’s free­dom of expres­sion? Does Microsoft have a blog­ging policy and if so how does it influ­ence what you write?

   (As I said, thought provoking!)

4. Carol Avis Says:
   August 24th, 2007 at 11:12 am

   Pas­sion­ate, excit­ing present­a­tion yes­ter­day at AIM on WEb 2.0. Thanks Nick. A great meld of two of your spe­ci­al­it­ies: Technology-to-English and stra­tegic thinking.

5. Stephen Collins Says:
   August 24th, 2007 at 12:06 pm

   @Susan, given Nick men­tioned me in his talk last night, I think I can chime in with respect to yuor questions.

   An authen­tic voice is crit­ical for online com­mu­nic­a­tion. Provided that com­mu­nic­a­tion is in a pro­fes­sional capa­city. Whether you’re a car­toon­ist, or a con­sult­ant, your voice online ought to reflect an atti­tude appro­pri­ate to what you do an what you’re say­ing. In this respect, online com­mu­nic­a­tion is no dif­fer­ent to any other form of com­mu­nic­a­tion. That said, in some instances and indus­tries (mine, for example, as a con­sult­ant on Web 2.0 and social com­put­ing) your voice can be a little more relaxed than it might be.

   There is, for example, some­thing of an expect­a­tion that my work makes me a little edgy and mav­er­ick — I’m deal­ing with tech­no­lo­gies and issues that many organ­isa­tions don’t yet fully under­stand. Equally, I need to couch any­thing I say in terms of what the cli­ent or audi­ence can under­stand, so I don’t just burst into a room and start rav­ing pas­sion­ately at the audi­ence about my sub­ject mat­ter. As much as I might want to sometimes.

   I think any recruiter is wise to look for online evid­ence of a per­son dur­ing the recruit­ment pro­cess — both in terms of pro­fes­sional inform­a­tion, say from a blog, LinkedIn or Face­book or per­sonal inform­a­tion, say from MySpace. Per­son­ally, I think a boozy photo wouldn’t turn me off a poten­tial hire — it shows they’re a real per­son — as much as evid­ence of incom­pet­ence, imprudent dis­cus­sion of mater­ial they aren’t qual­i­fied to speak about, or evid­ence the indi­vidual has dubi­ous social atti­tudes such as racism or being a mysoginist.

   I think the line needs to be drawn, but it prob­ably is hazy and has gaps in it. My Face­book pro­file, for instance, shows a lot of my pro­fes­sional interests, but also con­tains per­sonal interest mater­ial. It shows me as human. I want to work with humans, not machines.

   As for cor­por­ate blog­ging policies, they ought not be par­tic­u­larly dif­fer­ent from cor­por­ate comms policies gen­er­ally — speak about that which you are qulaified to speak, don’t reveal non-public product inform­a­tion, leave fin­an­cial info to the CEO/CFO. IBM and Sun (and I ima­gine Nick’s employer, Microsoft) all have pub­licly avail­able policies on online com­mu­nic­a­tion. I often point my cli­ents to them when they ask your question.

   I don’t think a cor­por­ate blog­ging policy should or needs to restrict free­dom of expres­sion. A cor­por­ate blog on the com­pany domain (e.g. microsoft.com) should largely be focussed on cor­por­ate inform­a­tion with occa­sional per­sonal stuff. Start a per­sonal blog if you want to blog about other stuff. That said, there are very many mixed con­tent blogs out there where people are blog­ging cor­por­ate inform­a­tion and per­sonal inform­a­tion, but they’re largely not on com­pany domains.

   I’d be more than happy to have an exten­ded con­ver­sa­tion with you or any­one else around this. You can find my full con­tact details at http://www.acidlabs.org/approach/contact/.

6. David Maccallum Says:
   August 24th, 2007 at 9:30 pm

   Hi Nick

   Really enjoyed your presentation.

   I will be fol­low­ing up a num­ber of the ref­er­ences in your slides.

   Thanks

   David Mac­cal­lum

7. Phil Dorahy Says:
   August 25th, 2007 at 8:39 pm

   G’day Nick
   Thanks for a very inform­at­ive present­a­tion. I was inter­ested in a some­what “off the cuff” com­ment you made about your title being made “pro­fes­sional geek” after some debate with your employer, Microsoft. Do you want to elab­or­ate on the dis­cus­sion you had about this and whether it caused any con­sterna­tion? It strikes me as inter­est­ing if it was hard to con­vince people that a title like this might fit on an org chart in the brave new web world!

8. Blogging from a Corporate Perspective | nickhodge.com | mungenet Says:
   August 27th, 2007 at 7:08 pm

   […] Ques­tions my AIM Present­a­tion Last Week: […]

9. hodgenick Says:
   August 27th, 2007 at 7:10 pm

   First round of ques­tions : Cor­por­ate Blogging

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