I took some heat from the attendees at Supernova earlier this year for my skepticism about the whole bloggers-in-corporate-America thing. Yes, there are examples, mostly in the tech industry, of smart, energetic bloggers (and blogging execs) who have brought a human face to their companies, and who serve as corporate ambassadors to the blogosphere. Grand — it’s a smart move for both the individual bloggers and the companies. Someday, you might even see this model spread. But beyond the confines of an industry like software — in which many of the individual workers are highly skilled, highly paid, mobile and relatively confident of their own re-employability — it will happen a lot more slowly than the rhetoric at blogging conferences these days suggests.
Outside of the tech industry, and a few pockets here and there like law and medicine and library science, blogging remains an inscrutable anomaly, less likely to be seen by an employer as a PR plus than as an HR nightmare. Corporate America is still, outside of a few islands of enlightenment (and pragmatism in the face of a chaotic world), all about control — controlling the message, controlling costs, controlling the employee’s life to the extent that the company is able. (It’s the same spirit our “CEO President” is bringing to his current reorg.)
Here are two recent examples illustrating my point, from opposite ends of the power hierarchy. Mark Cuban — the wealthy dot-com mogul who now blogs and owns his own basketball team — is about as independent and autonomous as bloggers come. If anyone can blog without fear of reprisal from his industry, it’s someone like him, right? But here he is, getting fined for a blog posting. This is the appalling, outrageous post that raised the NBA’s ire. I’m a total sports ignoramus, but as far as I can tell, Cuban wasn’t supposed to raise a public complaint about his league’s idiotic decision to hold its opening day on Election Day because — well, why, exactly? Is it just, like, unsportsmanlike? Did Cuban violate the league’s omerta? In any case, so much for transparency, conversations and all the other blogosphere values.
But Cuban’s punishment is pretty trivial compared with the plight of sometime Delta flight attendant Ellen Simonetti, who got fired for posting pictures on her blog that only the Taliban could find offensive. Now, Simonetti’s case has gotten a lot of attention, and it’s certainly possible she’ll be able to turn her ex-employer’s stupidity to her advantage. But losing your job is no fun, and whatever the outcome of her saga, her company threw down a gauntlet to all her former colleagues: Blog at your own risk — we’re watching your every step.
So it’s not just newspaper workers who are being told their employment precludes them from having the right to keep an online journal. It’s people in all walks of life. And it’s not just the people at the bottom of the pyramid who meet resistance. There’s a deep and strong unwillingness in the business world to give up habits of secrecy and control. Maybe it’s just inertia. But I don’t see these walls toppling easily, or without a big fight.
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