Blogging: Establishing Ethical Guidelines Many corporations encourage their employees to participate in external blogs to connect with customers and industry partners, develop relationships with potential customers, and build teamwork among employees. Sun Microsystems, which has a publicly accessible blog site with 1,300 employee blogs at www.blogs.sun.com, encourages employees to engage customers in technical conversations about Sun products. They consider this blog a valuable medium for exchanging product information and building brand loyalty. Companies can also use blogs to track market trends, collect feedback on its products, and trigger ideas for new products or services. The film distributor Netflix entered a working partnership with a blogger who was attracting 100,000 customers a month with his postings about online movie-rental companies. Netflix used his suggestions to expand its offerings with a new service called Profiles. This wave of new corporate blogs, however, comes with risks. Employees may reveal confidential company information or embarrassing facts about themselves or colleagues. For example, Mark Jen was fired from Google for sharing in his blog inappropriate comments about the company’s financial performance and future products. He also complained about Google’s employee benefits while in his first ten days on the job. Other companies have fired employees for similar activities. Microsoft booted a contractor for posting pictures of Apple Macintosh computers at a company office. To safeguard private company information, many companies are developing blogging guidelines for their employees to follow.

Your Task.
As a corporate communication intern for a popular producer of consumer products, you have been given a task. Your boss, Meredith Mancuso, knows that you are in college and aware of digital communication. She asks you to help her. The company encourages employees to participate in an external blog that connects them with customers and industry partners. Because the public has access to this site, your company wants to protect confidential information and present a professional image to the public. Ms. Mancuso asks you to develop a list of blogging guidelines for employees to follow. Use the Web or an online database to find information. Submit at least six potential blogging guidelines in a memo to Ms. Mancuso.