RSS feedI’ve been struggling these last few weeks over whether I should let fly at a well known market research organisation who have recently yet prematurely embraced blogging. Several of their management staff have blogs, yet seem to have no idea what to use them for, and more often than not simply throw mud at other bloggers they disagree with. I’m still reading one of their blogs, having cast the rest aside, and if it weren’t for the collection of material I’ve been saving for my uber anti-blog post, I’d have dumped them from my reader months ago.
Yet I haven’t yet written about them, and I don’t know if I will. I have no problem correcting other writers when they are wrong, but slamming an entire company for stupidity? When I was younger, in those torrid 1980s BBS days, I wouldn’t have bat an eyelid, abusive verbage would have streamed from my keyboard. In those days, it was give as good as you get.
But wouldn’t that just be doing what they’ve been doing? Where do you draw the line between correcting inaccuracies, and highlighting stupidity?
I’m still thinking it through, but it made me want to finally put together a manifesto for my blogging. I’ll have it up over the next few days, but for would be bloggers, jumping into this very public space without much thought, insist upon writing up your own guidelines/manifesto. Why are you blogging? What do you hope to gain from it, and what if anything do you hope to give to your readers?
Meanwhile, perhaps check out this piece (from my work blog) on the privacy issues of blogging. The golden rule, if ever there was one, is know why you’re writing, what you’re writing, and for whom you’re writing. Oh, and don’t forget to have fun!