Yahoo Publishes Employee Blogging Guidelines
Yahoo has publicly published its employee blogging guidelines (version 1.0, no betas) and they are concise, intelligent, and actually quite helpful. If you are blogging, whether for any company or not, they present some good advice you should take to heart. In fact, almost all companies could use Yahoo’s guidelines, just by crossing out the word “Yahoo”.
I say “almost all” because some companies are a bit paranoid about what their employees say. For instance, I have been leaked the first two sentences of Google’s blogging guidelines:
1. The first rule of Google is that you do not talk about Google.2. The second rule of Google is that you do not talk about Google.
I wish I could legally reprint the rest (there’s a surprise ending).
Anyway, besides publishing the two-page+ PDF, Yahoo has linked to four of its bloggers and their advice. Jeremy Zawodny says:
Basically, just about anyone can and will read what you publish. So keep that in mind. If you’re worried about what your Mom, manager, ex-coworker, or Terry Semel would think, listen to that instinct. And realize that once a cat is out of the bag, you can never get the damned thing back in. The blog world is incredibly efficient at spreading rumors, secrets, rants, hyperbole, and your mistakes.You’ll make mistakes. We all do. Just try to be smart about it.
Yahoo!’s policy is wonderfully transparent:1. We’re not going to save your ass.
2. You still work for us, so don’t blab secrets or we’ll hurt you.
3. Get someone smarter to do follow ups with money people.
4. Be nice to the people you spend eight++ hours a day with.
5. Get your facts straight BEFORE you post.
6. “It Sucks” is not a good post.
7. Blab about everything and nobody will like you.i’d also love if more companies realized that their biggest asset is really their biggest asset. People want to hear from real people.
Hi, my name is JR Conlin and i work for
(Will you cut that out‽) i work for Yahoo!.
The others (Russel Beattie & Jeff Boulter) have yet to post their advice.
Oh, and a something I noticed: Mark Jen shows up in Jeremy’s comments. Boy, that takes me back.
UPDATE: As you can see in the comments below, I’ve ticked off some pretty important people with my joke about Google’s blogging guidelines. If you thought that was serious, it was not. Its a reference to Fight Club, an excellent film (with a “surprise ending), and Google’s colorful history with blogging. I absolutely was not trying to fool anyone, and had no idea it would be taken seriously. If you believed my stupid joke, I apologize profusely.
Perhaps Yahoo needs to amend its blogging guidelines to include “Do not make jokes unless everyone knows you are joking”. Does anyone else have a situation where a blog joke went horribly wrong?
For the sense-of-humor-impaired, those ‘leaked Google guidelines’ are completely false. (Did you get them from Tyler?)
Comment by Kevin Fox | June 2, 2005
Kevin, you wouldn’t be talking about yourself, would you?
Comment by Nathan Weinberg | June 2, 2005
Nope. I don’t even shop at Ikea anymore…
Comment by Kevin Fox | June 2, 2005
As I emailed you yesteday Nathan, I was a bit disappointed to find out you made these guidelines up in a news story without clearly marking this as your sarcasm. I was thinking it was Google’s attempt at humor, but that nevertheless they wanted to make a point in their guidelines. So even those who aren’t sense-of-humor-impaired might have thought the guidelines were real.
If you intended this to be a Google-bashing prank, I think it was far too subtle (along the lines of what would be OK on April 1st) and doesn’t belong in a news story. You may understand why this forces me to now read your stories in a different light when it comes to considering them as news source.
Comment by Philipp Lenssen | June 2, 2005
Wow, Philipp, I am completely surprised that you took that that line as anything other than a sarcastic joke. Even for people who haven’t seen “Fight Club”, it should have been obvious that I was not at all serious. C’mon, if someone at Google had leaked me their super-secret blogging guidelines, don’t you think I would have treated it as a really big deal?
Comment by Nathan Weinberg | June 2, 2005
If anyone else thought that I was serious when I joked about Google’s history with bloggers, I am sorry. I thought that it would be obvious that I was joking, and if it wasn’t, I messed up, and apologize for it.
Comment by Nathan Weinberg | June 2, 2005
Did Google make you tell everyone it was a joke? Are they watching you right now? If so blink twice.
Comment by Jason | June 2, 2005
Blink.
Sorry, Jason, no conspiracy here. I just believe in being completely open and willing to admit my mistakes. I didn’t intend to fool anybody, and I want to set the record straight.
Comment by Nathan Weinberg | June 3, 2005
Nathan,
Yes, humor can sometimes backfire. Especially since we are writing to the eyes of several people outside of the US, who are not on the same plane of humor. Although in this case, I thought it was fairly obvious, I did show this post to a couple of friends in Asia who took your word for it! Something I found hard to believe.
Comment by Ram | June 3, 2005
Nathan, FWIW, I thought it was a funny joke. I’ve heard the exact same joke from numerous other people when discussing my experience.
I suppose you might’ve labeled the joke part explicitly, but then again, it’s a pretty clear reference to Fight Club.
Comment by Mark Jen | June 3, 2005
Thanks, Mark. I think the problem wasn’t that the joke wasn’t clearly a joke, but that some people assumed it was legit even though it was a joke, because Google makes jokes like that all the time. If Google had actual blogging guidelines, I wouldn’t be surprised if it started with a joke as well. That’s what threw off some people, the fact that, joke intact, it actually seemed more accurate than it might without.
Comment by Nathan Weinberg | June 3, 2005
I agree with Mark Jen in that it was a good joke and I find it unusual that anyone could take it seriously for more than 5 minutes. In that time it would either occurr to them that it is a reference, or that it is at such a pole opposite to Google’s public image the google exec’s would very much dislike to be seen as quite so two faced by their evergrowing workforce.
This site is an excellent source of information and this most certainly does not take away from that.
Comment by Conall | June 4, 2005