I guess the key point I wanted to make was that not having a blogging policy is not what we should be so concerned about, it works fine for us without. Not monitoring the brand, not knowing and/or wanting to be part of the conversation, … is a much bigger concern if you ask me.

Anyway; there should be guidelines in place but they also should be a normal extension to the business conduct guidelines or security guidelines already in place at the company. At least that’s how it is done at IBM. And true, they are based on common sense….

Most companies who do have these things in place (like IBM) have posted them publicly, so for those who think it would be a good idea; have a look, adapt and copy.

On the context of semantics, we were asking the respondents on ‘guidelines’, so including ‘policy’.

I personnally was surprised by the amount of companies that did not have in place a dedicated ‘policy’. I do know that many companies have an internet policy, so why have they not yet ‘expanded’these?

And, as I said in my comment, I like things to be clear and outspoken. That way each party in the game knows where his/here responsability lies…

As for Microsoft, we do have a sharepoint with tips & tricks, we do have an easy system to set up blogs on the microsoft domain, we do have an internal alias for all bloggers in the company, etc… which are all free to use if you want but will help you if you’re looking for something.

I must say: Philippe translated the term ‘blogging guidelines’from the press release to ‘blogging policies’in his post, so to avoid misunderstanding: I think organizations should have guidelines, a sort of ‘tips and tricks’, ‘do’s and don’ts’(even if that’s considered to be common sense by you or me). I don’t think they should have a rule book stating what’s allowed and what not, with penalties for people who don’t follow the rules).

I think you’re taking a biased look at this because you speak from your experience at Microsoft, where blogging became a natural part of the company spirit (as far as I can judge). For a lot of organizations, that’s not the case, and I think employees should be protected from themselves in a way.

Again: setting up blogging guidelines within an organization doesn’t have any disadvantages IMHO, on the contrary.

Talking about common sense, again nothing to do with a policy, this is where you shouldn’t do anything on your blog that you wouldn’t do in any other type of conversation (related to your company) either. You don’t disclose company secrets, you don’t talk bad about colleagues, … nothing unusual.

However, with regard to your comment about ‘blogging policies’: I think having one as an organization is a must! Clear guidelines on what you should or shouldn’t blog about could prove useful for both the employee and the organization, while not having one could lead to misunderstandings, confusion and abuse.

Besides, ‘Just use your common sense’is just as much a blogging policy as any other.