From NWFusion: can Blogging Boost your IT Career?
Tags :Blogging
This has been sitting on my desk in actual print copy for a week but it was one of those "I will get around to blogging it" items. But I wanted to throw it away so here we go. With so many widely publicized examples of employees getting sacked for posting their thoughts online, is there any career upside for IT professionals who want to create their own blogs?
I would think that there is for most in the IT industry with careful thought and planning. If you are providing meaningful technical content you are showing skillset. If you are bashing your employer or customers, you are likely to get fired. If you are promoting your employer by driving customers from the blog to your corporate site, you are providing benefit. If you are scaring off people looking at you as an employee or possible solution provider, you have taken the wrong angle in blogging.
I find it as a great output and even a personal point of reference material. How many times have I mentioned technotes to issues we have seen? How many tips or shortcuts? I don't know but I realize I can go back anytime. This is the same with my newsletter for LotusUserGroup and now podcast. As the means to reach more people becomes available, I change they way I produce information.
How much time is too much time blogging? I knock these out quite quick or come back through the day or night until it is ready. I have numerous ones in draft mode that never saw the light of day for one reason or another. I think we are seeing so much information put out there it is hard to keep up as a reader. Some of us are able to post quite a few topic (hint Ed). But he is reaching amazing amounts of Lotus information seekers throughout the world. This serves as a huge benefit to his employer, not just himself. Sure, most of us knew of Ed previously, but do you think a few of the recent newspapers and magazines would be mentioning him if not indicating him as a blogger? I would tend to say no. It is all exposure.
One thing that the article does not address is where the blogging is performed. Can an employee be fired for having a personal blog that does not contain any indication of the company, but has distasteful content? We already have precedent on firing over work blogs that cover work content or people.
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On Monday, August 28th, 2006 by Chris Miller
