Blogging Work Life

Steve commented (bottom) on a post of mine in which I linked to a post by Scoble and he has some very valid points I’d like to extend upon.

First up, I don’t blog about where I work and I only blog remotely about work itself. That really allows me to blog freely about everything else, even though some of the things are related to work. Scoble is correct that you need to overcome the fear to blog, both as a person and as a corporation. That’s what this is about. Blogging helps to clear your thinking and it’s a great way to do your own “Brand You” campaign.

Companies need to get their own voice (yes, read Cluetrain Manifesto ;)) and if a company decides that blogging will help them get that voice, then they will really have to embrace blogging and the bloggers in their ranks. That’s a totally different system though. Bloggers don’t need to blog about work. It’s not like this is your duty and if the company doesn’t want bloggers that talk about the company then they don’t. Of course, linking a blogger to a company has the added risk of that blogger moving somewhere else and believing that the blogger is intelligent enough to blog freely and know the limits.

What Scoble’s post really is good at is showing the power of blogging and that the phenomenon has just begun. Let’s not call it blogging but personal publishing, the advent of the long tail of sharing knowledge and voice.