<![CDATA[Scobleizer: Microsoft Geek Blogger:
I should have been clearer. When you are identified as part of a corporation you’ve gotta be more careful in your writing than when you are talking with close personal friends over beer on Friday night. Some bloggers have told me they take great care to remain anonymous or, at least, don’t mention who they are working for.
That said, I do think it’s important to share who you are. If you look at my blog you’ll see I talk about my divorce. My car wreck. My religious beliefs (or lack thereof). My beliefs on gay marriage. My politics.
But I know that when I do those things I’m doing so at great risk that someone in power over me might not like that and might use those things to my detriment.
That’s where I differ from Mark Jen. He took risks without really knowing the consequences (and without having a social network to absorb the shock when he tried to do something different). When I take them I go into them knowing full well the risks and I know what my boss is willing to defend.
See the difference?
I see what Robert sees as the difference, but I believe Scoble has just made a point his critics have been laboring to articulate for a long time. Robert is aware of and concerned about the implications of his writing, of being honest and the consequences. That inevitably shapes what he says about Microsoft.
But, isn’t that also an admission on my part that I would worry about whether advertisers would revoke their sponsorship of this blog if they didn’t like what I write? Not if you take my view…. Fuck ’em if they can’t take a joke, I can always find another sponsor, but there’s only one me out there. If my blog costs me a “job” or a client, that’s the price of admission to a frank and honest relationship with my readers.]]>
3 replies on “I see what Scoble thinks is different, but….”
You can have an open and frank relationship without being stupid, can’t you?
But this is not a dilemma exclusive to the blogging. We make these choices in life every day. Our idle conversations with co-workers at the office have the same potential to veer into expressing opinions that someone, somewhere won’t like.
Blogging just puts it out there in a more discoverable way.
I, for example, write the blog for the Santa Clara County Democratic Party. I have had people say to me, aren’t you afraid you will not get, or even lose, a client because of your political beliefs? And I have confidently replied…”if they would make that decision, then I don’t want ’em.” However…I might not feel as strongly about every little thing.
I make a hundred little decisions per day on how to express things in my blog. Concern about how my readers will interpret/enjoy a post necessarily plays in there somewhere. Can you really say it doesn’t?
Elisa’s comments clarify why Robert thinks it is not open and frank: Yes, we do make those hundreds of judgments each day, but what I am talking about is deciding to withold a criticism because it has direct economic consequences.
That’s very different than making editorial judgments. Elisa will not worry about losing a client she wouldn’t want (nor would I, clearly, because I am critical of just about everything and everybody ;^>), but as she says “I might not feel as strongly about every little thing.” Indeed, no one does.
So, Robert, what I mean is that when you feel you can’t say something, you don’t say you can’t say something. You don’t write: “I wouldn’t want to get fired, so I’ll keep my opinions to myself.” That would be open and frank.