Hey, You Can’t Say That!
This session is moderated by Greg Laden, Rick MacPherson, Karen James, Craig McClain and Mark Powell:
It’s tempting to think that what we contribute in our blogs is written with impunity. But what happens when readers react so negatively to your words that it can leverage pressure on you from your boss, peers, colleagues, or administration? What responsibility, if any, do bloggers owe to their “day job” in avoiding controversy (and vice versa)? Is it enough to say in your profile that “this blog is my personal space and does not reflect the views of my employer”? Is capitulating to pressure a failure or just savvy blogging? What are the rules, if any, to self-censorship? Should an employer have a policy or set of guidelines regarding staff’s personal & professional blogging (and other public and semi-public activities like Facebook)? And when does pseudonymous blogging become a necessity? Bring your own perspectives and experiences to a discussion that explores the ups and downs of science bloggers who navigate the stormy waters between free expression and reader/employer backlash.
Discuss:
I’ve been here…I’ve been lambasted by well known bloggers with high profiles and reputations and it had two effects – 1) was distressing, distracting and turned people off what we are doing and 2) was motivating, got me INTO the blogosphere and drove traffic to see what all the fuss was about. (See the graph here: http://www.chemspider.com/blog/?p=221). Truth is you need to have a thick skin at times to deal with some of the results of blogging and a good sense of humor and “poke-back” can go a long way to working through it (for me at least: http://www.chemspider.com/blog/the-joys-and-frustrations-of-6-months-blogging-in-the-chemistry-community-part-ii.html) Posted By: ChemSpiderman
SHOPKEEPING:
In order to create as open and risk-free an environment as possible for presenter and participant sharing during this session, I’ve asked Bora and conference organizers to not videotape or record this session. One of the primary motivations for this topic is that for some of us, employer or colleague criticism of our blogging activities (or choice of topics) has created significant pressure on (among other things) job security, reputation, or both.
But we are interested in getting some of the outcomes of this session out into a broader online blogging community than just those conference attendees. So are there suggestions on how to either live-blog or report on this session while still maintaining some confidentiality?
THIS SESSION WILL NOT BE RECORDED (management).
