Think twice before you fire that blogger
May 19, 2005
If you have any spare Artron energy kicking around give Joe Gordon a call. He’s having a Doctor Who moment and his Tardis needs a refill.
Yes, Joe Gordon. If that name rings a bell it’s because Joe created headlines last January when he was fired by Waterstone’s the bookseller for blogging a couple of bad words about their business.
To some, he was as guilty as a cat with a goldfish tail in the corner of his mouth.
Your blog might offer a private little trove of dreams and wishes but once it’s been set free on the internet, it becomes a public document. And referring to your place of work as Bastardstone’s is unlikely to win employee of the month.
But to others, he was a hero of the free blogosphere.
Roquefort or Brie de Meaux?
It was Waterstone’s who emerged from the debacle with their reputation smelling of French cheese. Displaying the sort of touch which made Montgomery Burns’s trap door appear a model of HR practice they despatched him to the job queue instead of delivering a more measured slap on the wrist.
The matter was resolved three months later when Waterstone’s acknowledged they could have handled things better and offered Joe his job back.
But by then the sci-fi fan had flown to the Forbidden Planet, where he is now happily building time-travelling transporters.
Though the parties came to a financial agreement and called it quits, Waterstone’s of course is still known in some quarters as the company which sacked a blogger rather than the firm which graciously kissed and made up.
Forearmed, forewarned
It was this week’s news about IBM’s new blogging guidelines which reminded me of the Joe Gordon case.
Whether you suspect you have a couple of closet bloggers on the premises or, like IBM, play host to a potential 320,000 Big Blue bloggers, companies need to compose a few sensible guidelines to pass round the office.
I suspect most businesses still consider themselves unlikely to tumble into a Waterstone’s situation but with an estimated 40,000 new blogs created every day, how can they be sure?
Afterword
Have Waterstone’s learned any lessons from the Joe Gordon affair?
The company’s own website is an Amazon shop, nice if you want to buy books but short on corporate communications.
I picked up the phone. Do they monitor blogs now? “No, we don’t monitor blogs,” said the press person.
Do they have a blogging policy?
Long pause as she searched for the appropriate decree.
“We are currently revising policies to ensure clear guidance on weblogs,” she droned.
Good. That’s at least half the stable door closed and bolted.
Tags: reputation management, blogging guidelines, corporate blogging