Developing corporate blogging policy; lawyers and publishers take on the challenge

There is an urgent need for employers and their blogger-employees to reach an accommodation and understanding as to what blog content is acceptable and what is unacceptable.

I have touched on this throughout my “Firing Bloggers” series [scroll to bottom of linked page for links to the series].

Now I am excited to read that a self-appointed committee, with public input via the blogosphere, will be crafting a recommended law firm blogging policy. Meanwhile, one of the largest publicly traded publishing companies in the world has made public a draft blogging policy, asking for comment.

While there are some special considerations for law firms and publishers, I expect most of the issues these two projects address will be similar or identical to those faced by other businesses crafting blogging policies.

I therefore look forward to watching and reporting on the progress of this very important model law firm policy project, and the response to the publishing company policy, both of which I expect will be of substantial utility to all employers seeking to fairly balance the risks and benefits of employee blogging.

The law firm news comes from Kevin O’Keefe of LexBlog via his blog Real Lawyers Have Blogs. Kevin writes:“Hornsby, Bodine and O’Keefe to craft law firm blogging policy”

Kevin will be joined on this project by Will Hornsby, the guy who has literally written the book on “Marketing and Legal Ethics,” and Larry Bodine, who, “[i]n addition to founding a leading law marketing listserv and an excellent law marketing portal, . . . served as Director of Communications at Sidley, Austin Brown & Wood and as Editor and Publisher of the American Bar Association Journal.”

Kevin also brings a special business interest and expertise to this project: his business, like his blog, is all about helping lawyers and law firms use blogs as marketing tools.

Kevin’s blog, which seemingly grows more prolific each day, has become one of the premier blogs promoting the idea of blogs-as-marketing, in any industry.

The publishing company draft policy appeared just last Friday on a blog entitled “Working Smart: The alternative to working hard!”

This blog is maintained by Michael Hyatt, “the President and Chief Operating Officer of Thomas Nelson Publishers, the largest Christian publishing company in the world and the ninth largest publishing company of any kind.”

(Interesting blog title for a CEO! Michael seems to be a guy who’d really be fun to chat with — about lots more than Christian books — or even Christianity.)

Anyway, here’s where he posted the policy: “Corporate Blogging Rules”

The Thomas Nelson Publishers blogging policy is not meant to deal broadly with all aspects of employee blogging. Rather, it is intended to govern employee blogs that will be linked to the corporate web site.

Here’s the concept, in Michael’s words:

The aggregator site will simply link to the individual sites. It will be . . . accessible through our main corporate Web site.

This program has three primary objectives:

1. To raise the visibility of our company and our products.

2. To make a contribution to the publishing community.

3. To give people a look at what goes on inside a real publishing company.

Look at the policy, which he has posted in its entirety, and then at the trackbacks below it.

At first glance, I have no major criticisms of the policy, except that it certainly sounds like it was drafted by a bunch of lawyers.

That’s not necessarily a bad thing. Since the lawyers will be involved as soon as the first problem arises — they might as well have buy-in on the policy development.

The extensive disclaimers in the “Notes” section strike me as somewhat overkill — perhaps at least they could be condensed.

But the rules themselves all seem to address important points with which responsible employee-bloggers should not disagree, and which other corporate policy should probably also address.

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