Really enjoyed your presentation.

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

Thanks

David Maccallum

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/.

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!)

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

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