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Corporate Blogs, From Bellyache To Headache 29

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the burning-bridges-and-other-bad-methods-for-promotion dept.
An anonymous reader writes "The Washington Post is running an article about corporate blogging and the headaches that come with it. From the article: 'Like anonymous blogs supposedly written by employees of Microsoft Corp. and Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the BearingPoint blog is, in many ways, just like happy-hour conversations that employees are apt to hold after work. They gripe about inane training programs, grouse about absurd corporate policies and ruminate about management incompetence. But transferred to cyberspace, where the audience is global, the management headaches associated with such grumblings become instantly more severe.'"
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Corporate Blogs, From Bellyache To Headache More

Corporate Blogs, From Bellyache To Headache

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  • Those usenet postings are just a search away on Google groups. Sometimes I pull a few up just to shiver at what an idiot I was. Heh, maybe in 15 years I'll be Googling my old slashdot posts. Posting on the internet is like getting a tatoo only a tatoo is easier to erase.
    • Those usenet postings are just a search away on Google groups. Sometimes I pull a few up just to shiver at what an idiot I was. Heh, maybe in 15 years I'll be Googling my old slashdot posts. Posting on the internet is like getting a tatoo only a tatoo is easier to erase.

      Which is why it is useful to use some sort of alias. Unless you really have a reason to be known by your real name.

      • Which is why it is useful to use some sort of alias. Unless you really have a reason to be known by your real name.

        Yeah, but back then most people used their real name and primary (and only) email address. In 1990, you couldn't just go out and get a free email address anytime you wanted. It's much easier to be anonymous today. I only use my real name in email correspondence for work and real world friends and family. Of the few people I know from online only (outside of work), none know any personal inf
      • I don't see your point. Why should people not use their real name? I always do. Supposedly it can get ya blacklisted. Try having a serious scientific investigation; this is a need, that being self actualization. That would be able to serve both opensource and commercial users.
        • Plus, some people have gained recognizability under their real name. People point to them and say, "oh, I know what he did."

          And even if you don't use your real name, that pseudonym becomes attached to your identity perhaps even stronger than your real name if you get enough exposure. There are tons of examples.
    • Posting on the internet is like getting a tatoo only a tatoo is easier to erase.

      Oh, you have been sigged. :)
    • It's possible to get Google to remove your posts [google.com] from their Usenet archive.

      I regularly search on the names of job applicants and I'm amazed at what hits I can find.

  • Is anyone really surprised with that? In a time where a company's stock price can fall by 50% and the execs get 50 million bonus while the employee's pensions are being cancelled, how can you say anything good about management?

    Peter.
  • Maybe companies should be less inane, absurd and incompetent. If a company is inane, absurd and incompetent (and most companies are inane, absurd and incompetent) it is the fault of inane, absurd and incompetent management.

    But they'll just fire everyone instead.

    • Re:Hmm (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Tachikoma ( 878191 )
      But they'll just fire everyone instead.
      unless you work for state/federal government. we have all the "inane, absurd and incompetent" (on a larger, more incompetent scale) without that "get fired" thing

  • Recommendations? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Chagatai ( 524580 ) on Wednesday March 01, 2006 @07:31PM (#14831423) Homepage
    Are there any good blogs that Slashdotters read about corporate life, or directories that break down blogs by company? I don't have any businesses specifically in mind, I'm just looking for funny and juicy stories about how companies fare.

  • Instead of complaining about their dirty laundry being aired in public, management should use those blogs and forums to make practical changes to their policies.

    Most people won't gripe about little stuff to anyone with authority to fix the problem and so most organizations have this crazy idea that there aren't that many little problems to be dealt with.

    They gripe about inane training programs, grouse about absurd corporate policies and ruminate about management incompetence.

    Another possibility: Communicati

  • I see this as being a little like open source software. Just as open source exposes bugs to the world, ensuring a better quality product (because not many people will touch it if they can see it's crap), so too do these blogs expose all the corporate horseshit that has piled up in so many companies.

    If companies have a problem with this, maybe they should just plain clean up their acts so they don't have to worry about it so much. And no, just having an "ethics statement" on the walls and in the orientatio
  • thanks to strict constitutionalism, the constitution doesn't apply to corporations, which is all good for conservatives until Wal-Mart tells its employees to say "Happy Holidays".

    So what do you expect regarding blogs?

    • Those of us who aren't christian and don't celebrate Christmas don't particularly like having everybody wish them a Merry Christmas. Yes, I know they mea well, but it's still shoving their overly-commercialized holiday down my throat. Happy Holidays is much better, because it makes no such assumptions. The only person I can think of who'd be offended would be a rabid athiest that ignored New Years.
  • The blog that TFA refers to is here. [blogspot.com]
  • ...cluetrain manifesto.

    Blogs like this are the effect; the cause of which is the corporate stupidity and closed wall, rigid heirarchy that they ridicule in their book.

    Not that I completely agree with locke et al; but they make some very good points.

    err!
    jak.
  • Has anyone got a link to the Bearingpoint blogger?

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