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02.09
The
Perils, Pitfalls and Pleasures of Blogging
By John R.
Platt
A few years ago, I told the IT
department at the company where I worked that I
wanted to create a blog for one of my projects.
Their response: "What's a blog?"
Well, like I said, that was a
few years ago. Since that time, blogs have
become pretty much entrenched in the online
world, and few people need to ask what a blog
is. In fact, according to
Technorati.com, the Web site that tracks
blogs and the blogging industry, an average of
900,000 blog posts are written every day, and
there are 22.6 million bloggers in the United
States alone.
But here's the question:
should you be one of those bloggers? Does
blogging on your own time put you in any risk
from your day job? Can it damage your career, or
could it help? And if you decide to blog, what
steps should you take to protect yourself?
To Blog…
There are plenty of reasons why
you should go ahead and blog. First of all, it's
fun. Blogging is a great way to communicate.
It's also easy, and it's a good outlet for what
you have to say. You can attract a readership,
or just expound upon the world as you see it.
Blogging gives you a place on
the Web that's your own, where you can fill it
with your personality or your knowledge. The
best or most popular blogs can even have an
impact on popular culture or various industries.
And a good blog can have a positive impact on
your career.
"My blog is a professional blog,"
says Roy Howard, who blogs at
www.theintegrationengineer.com. "I blog
about what I do, and so anyone who finds my blog
will see me talking about my industry. When I
Google for myself, I get my LinkedIn profile,
and my Facebook profile. Both have prominent
links to my blog. And both have information
about what type of person I am."
Blogging also helps you to focus your skills or
solve problems. "I encourage my students to start
writing blogs," says Professor Kevin McReynolds,
who teaches Business Information Systems program
at LDS Business College. His students' blogs
(available at
bis.ldsbc.edu; click on 'students') help
them practice their writing, learn how to
present their work, and seek comments on
problems they encounter during their studies.
…Or Not to Blog?
But as much fun as blogging can
be, sometimes what you have to say as an
individual might not reflect all that well on
yourself as professional.
"Any kind of blogging that
exposes yourself becomes a bit 'dangerous,' not
only as far as career is concerned, but also
private life," says Natalia Vrouvaki. "I used to
have a personal blog and a client of mine found
it. If more clients had been familiar with it, I
realized it would not have benefitted me, so I
shut it down."
Brandon Mendelson, who writes
Class Conflict: The Graduate Student Survival
Blog. agrees that blogging can sometimes
result in lost business. "I can't prove it, but
back when I had the bulk of my comedy articles
online, I think it is safe to assume I've lost
out on a few jobs because of the content of
those articles. Naturally, most of them have
been removed."
A novelist I know experienced a
different type of problem: When he posted the
name of his home town, fans showed up at his
door. He has since stopped providing clues in
his blog entries about where he actually lives.
Protecting Yourself
Blogging can open you up to
problems ranging from liability issues to being
mocked by cyber-trolls.
"I think that when people write
in a blog, or any Web-based content, they should
expect that information to be public," says
Hayward. "They should refrain from posting
embarrassing information. But if you get
so paranoid that you are being fake in your blogging, people will see that too."
Professional issues can also
arise. If you're a full-time employee, you need
to know what is expected of you by your company.
Can anything you say online be interpreted as
official comments by a representative of your
company? If so, you open yourself up to
repercussions from your management (for example,
if you happen to criticize them online). You
also risk presenting your entire company with
liability issues (or just bad PR) based on what
you say.
But that shouldn't necessarily
stop you from blogging about your vacation or
the latest episode of "Lost." "I Googled a guy a
few weeks ago and found some information that
was not professional," says Hayward, "but it was
descriptive of the person that he was. It didn't
damage our relationship at all. And it would
have been much more worrying if I had found
nothing."
Blogging can also show your
personality — or its weaknesses. Don't get
caught up in wars of words with the people who
comment on your blog. Unless you're careful, it
could just end up reflecting poorly on you.
Some Blogging Tips
Be careful what you write.
Remember that whatever you say on a blog is out
there, probably forever. You can take it down,
but maybe not before it gets copied by
archive.org or some other caching service.
Also be wary of posting industry
trade secrets, comments that reflect poorly on
your employer or boss, or generally libelous
statements that could get you in trouble with
the law.
Don't lie. The truth is too easy
to find in an online world.
Try not to blog from work, if
doing so could get you in trouble for misusing
your work hours.
If you blog about your industry,
and you have something vital to contribute, it
can help you establish yourself as an expert in
your field. Such a label can actually improve
your job prospects.
But most of all, if you're going
to blog, have fun. It's yours, and the more
pleasure you have writing it, the more reasons
people will have to read it.
John R. Platt
is a freelance writer and professional blogger
living in Maine. He writes the
Engineering Careers blog for
Experience.com,
Extinction Blog for Scientific American,
and
GreenTech blog for RiverWired.com.
Comments may
be submitted to todaysengineer@ieee.org.
Opinions expressed are the
author's.
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