As more companies start blogging – and the list is gaining ground – more are also making publicly available their guidelines on blogging, primarily focused on what the ground rules they have put in place are for employees who blog publicly so everyone knows the boundaries.
Good recent examples include IBM, Thomas Nelson Publishers, Hill & Knowlton and Yahoo. This list is growing, too.
A wholly different approach is offered by Electronic Data Systems (EDS), who keep it all very simple:
- We will tell the truth.
- We will review all comments for content before they are posted.
- We will try to respond to comments as fast as possible.
- We will link to all of our online resources directly.
- We will respect your comments and disagree with them where appropriate.
For a refreshingly-informal alternative to any such corporate guidelines, take a look at How to Blog and Not Lose Your Job – version 1.0 offered by Tom Reynolds, an Emergency Medical Technician with the London Ambulance Service.
Priceless!
(Hat tip for EDS info: Niall Cook via Steve Rubel)
EDS have certainly kept it brief, but I think this is because there is a subtle difference between “guidelines” and “guidance”.
Most of the guidelines that you mention (including our own) are exactly that, and need to be quite verbose. They wouldn’t normally be the kind of thing you would see posted in the “about” section of a blog.
Guidance, on the other hand, is much shorter and simpler – as per the EDS example.
Companies need both – personal blogging guidelines for employees, and guidance that everyone who blogs ‘officially’ for the brand will have to sign up to. This is what EDS have published, and we are doing the same for our corporate blogging community.
When we’re done with that, we’ll also need guidelines for intranet blogs, and guidance on using blogs for research/outreach…
I suspect most other companies will need all four of these as well.
EDS have certainly kept it brief, but I think this is because there is a subtle difference between “guidelines” and “guidance”.
Most of the guidelines that you mention (including our own) are exactly that, and need to be quite verbose. They wouldn’t normally be the kind of thing you would see posted in the “about” section of a blog.
Guidance, on the other hand, is much shorter and simpler – as per the EDS example.
Companies need both – personal blogging guidelines for employees, and guidance that everyone who blogs ‘officially’ for the brand will have to sign up to. This is what EDS have published, and we are doing the same for our corporate blogging community.
When we’re done with that, we’ll also need guidelines for intranet blogs, and guidance on using blogs for research/outreach…
I suspect most other companies will need all four of these as well.