Has your blog ever got you into trouble at work? According to a survey produced by Croner in the UK, a third of UK bloggers were at risk of getting the sack because of derogatory comments they’ve written about their workplace, boss or colleagues. According to the research firm, many bloggers are oblivious to the problems their posts could be creating.
I deliberately try not to write about the company I work for and also my business partners if I can help it, and I also don’t use my real name on my blog to try and limit any potential fallout from any of my posts. My boss also reads my blog which is handy, as hopefully he will give me an early warning if I ever do step out of line.
I did have a close call about a year ago though. I’d written a post about my firm which included information that I thought was in the public domain. However, even though the facts I had used were being published by many other sites and newspapers, they weren’t actually official numbers, and the in-house PR and IR teams were working hard to get the numbers they wanted to be used out.
Someone from the IR team found my post in their daily clippings, and based on my post worked out that I worked for the company. It was handed to the Head of PR to deal with and based on the content in the post he worked out that I must be ‘Everton Blair’ and he had a quiet word with me rather than initiating any disciplinary action, and asked if I wouldn’t mind removing the post.
Do you ‘censor’ yourself, or do you write freely about any and all topics?
