So You Googled an Employee, Now What?

Northern California Human Resources Association

425 California St., Suite 500
San Francisco, California 94104-2107

Comments

arielwaldman

Wow, this seems really offensive and doesn't appear to outline much more than a sense of "be afraid, be very afraid" of the internet and blogging in general. Overall, this event description is communicating that blogging is negative for any and all companies. This attitude is nothing better than the infamous BusinessWeek article on blogs that has been largely dissected and refuted by industry experts such as Jeff Veen: http://flickr.com/photos/tantek/763701489/

newfoundnoise82

150 bucks to tell u the internet is bad for business? This is wrong and offensive on so many levels I don't know where to begin, I mean I get it you need to protect your company and its secrets and intellectual property but to do so by acting that any posting is wrong? Seems like a giant leap when a small step would work, maybe it's just me.

Oh and ditto what Ariel said.

msrogue

Well, with all of these issues, a surprising number of large companies have actually BENEFITTED from having their employees blog. Mostly because they view blogging employees as a positive thing (a human contact with the customers, etc.) and are pro-active with a blogging policy (that usually just says, 'Post what you want, but please don't reveal company secrets or disparage coworkers.') I certainly hope this perspective is brought up during the talks. If you would like some links to good blogging policies:

http://www.thenewpr.com/wiki/pmwiki.php?pagename=Resources.BloggingPolicy

factoryjoe

I'd agree with the above comments. The description makes it sound like this event is all about spreading FUD and intolerance rather than opening up and embracing the more positive aspects of having more liberal policies towards employee expression and contact with the outside world.

scottmonty

Wow. Next thing you know, HR is going to try to figure out how to prevent employees from sending emails kvetching about their jobs...

urban_mermaid

Any company that operates from a position of fear doesn't have loyal employees anyway. All the above comments tout useful ways of working with employees who blog as a way to enhance your business. Draconian measures will do nothing but make people come up with other ways around the system.

lawgeek

This is pretty one-sided. Perhaps they should invite another lawyer to present a counter-perspective, say one from EFF? :)

KuraFire

Blogging and micro-blogging are great ways to enrich one's life and create an outlet that can (and often does) have fantastic personal and professional benefits. It's very last-century to think of blogging / the internet as an evil, that workers must be stopped from doing.

Add another vote for this event being offensive.

RellyAB

"Understand problems a company with a blogger may face"

Problems like it's so far up its own arse, it can't see the difference between company and individual?

1999 called and it wants its internet policy back.

jackdawson

All good comments folks, but look again at the speaker--she's *an attorney*. This is, unfortunately, how they think. They project the same narrow, progress prevention, approach whether we're talking about blogging, sales, marketing, or beer socials. Good business people take this kind of input with a (big) grain of salt and take an expansionist rather than protectionist approach. And since the target market for this event is web-ignorant, potentially fearful HR folk, I'm guessing they'll pack the house.

caseymckinnon

This reminds me of a crappy seminar I attended once that was supposed to teach business to art entrepreneurs. The lawyer lecturing at the seminar was telling the artists never to use ANYONE else's material in their creations or else they'd get sued. A very one-sided opinion since she neglected to mention the wealth of creative commons licensed content available to them. When I tried to stand up and make a comment, the lawyer rushed off the stage and refused to take any questions. I wish I had called bullshit sooner.

I'd like to see people attend this event, if only to call bullshit. We, the people of the internet, owe this to the less informed HR professionals :P

nsputnik

I know it is only two days away, but maybe some of you can have a Barcamp style event that is the antithesis of this one, and do it in the same neighborhood.

FullCalendar

I posted this event on behalf of an association for human resource professionals, that provides continuing education seminars related to professional certification. As such, this isn't meant to be a "state of the art" event for the general public, but rather educational for HR people who may not be that familiar with blogging and social media, and don't want to be blindsided by a negative incident. And who also don't want to overreact. I think the description was meant to attract HR people who might not know why they should be interested.

I posted it on Upcoming as I knew there were many bloggers & web-savvy people here, who I thought might be interested in the larger issue.

I'd be happy to put anyone interested in the topic in touch with the association, regarding this and future seminars.

Nancy Tubbs

So You Googled an Employee, Now What? December 4, 2007