Does it frustrate employees at Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, Facebook, and Apple that they can't genuinely speak up on the Internet and are compelled to do so anonymously (self-censorship), in most cases?
Answer Wiki
Contrary to the question's assumption, employees at Yahoo, Microsoft, Google, and others are allowed and even encouraged to blog freely.
However, there may be powerful self-censorship at play due to concerns about work and other interpersonal relationships, as well as worries about how statements may be perceived to be biased, or (incorrectly) assumed to represent the views of others at the writer's company.
However, there may be powerful self-censorship at play due to concerns about work and other interpersonal relationships, as well as worries about how statements may be perceived to be biased, or (incorrectly) assumed to represent the views of others at the writer's company.
18 Answers
Robert Scoble, I unboxed my first Apple in 1977.
73 votes by Robert J Taylor, Michael Moore-Jones, Pat Locke, (more)
Huh? I worked at Microsoft for three years and never had anyone tell me I couldn't blog. I blogged about many things while there. I told Steve Ballmer he was wrong. http://radio-weblogs.com/
I regularly blogged that Google was kicking our ass (and told Bill Gates that personally and publicly after coming back from a visit to Google's headquarters).
People forget that I blogged at NEC, a big Japanese company, and at PodTech, a small startup, and Fast Company magazine, a media company, before landing at Rackspace, a public company.
At all of these I've been very aware that I work in an "at will" state, which means I can get fired for wearing the wrong T-shirt, if my boss wants, much less what I say in public.
At Microsoft we had a rule "be smart." What did that mean? You can be authentic, but don't blog about customers, don't blog financial numbers due to rules concerning public companies, don't blog about technology that hasn't yet been protected (IE, patents haven't been filed) but other than that I could pretty much blog about whatever I wanted. Yeah, I was aware of the political winds that blow. If you are smart you listen to those winds closely. I saw people get fired at other companies because they were stupid about how they presented their company in public.
One thing, though. If I ever found I wasn't blogging for a company I loved I moved on. At Microsoft that took three years (they tried to keep me, even giving me a large promotion and a nice title of "strategist" but I knew the company didn't have a good product pipeline and I wanted to go somewhere that did have a good pipeline. It gets old saying "Google's kicking our ass" without much in return.
I'm having a ball at Rackspace which has a good product pipeline and a great community strategy (we are told simply "be helpful"), which makes all the difference in the world.
Some things I've learned:
1. Don't write ANYTHING you don't want to see on the front page of the New York Times tomorrow.
2. Understand your role in life. At Rackspace I'm not the CEO, so I don't try to talk like the CEO. That said, I get around to places the CEO doesn't, so if I have some advice for him, I'll definitely post it.
3. Before you throw someone under the bus, put yourself in their shoes. I've thrown lots of people under the bus in my 10 years of blogging. Heck, just recently I told the CEO of GM that he should be fired. I posted that knowing that he just might know our CEO, which could cause us trouble. But, I put myself in his position and figured it was worth the risk to post that. It is something I'd say to his face, too. But, this is VERY risky in a public company, or, really, any company. If you ruin someone else's reputation or product launch, for instance, expect blowback.
4. Know the law. You better know the law surrounding financial results, patents, and other things, before you really screw up royally. I once spent a weekend with a lawyer from Microsoft learning how they think and getting up to date on what pisses them off. That was invaluable.
5. Culture is NOT a line in the sand, it is a membrane that you can push on. You better know how taut that membrane is, and how many people will hold you in if you get resistance from that membrane. Each person will have a different membrane (a contractor at Microsoft got fired for breaking an NDA once, if I did the exact same thing my boss would have shrugged it off). Each company has a different membrane, too. What I was doing at Microsoft was NOT tolerated at Google or Apple, for instance.
I wrote a set of rules for myself BEFORE I go to Microsoft, titled "the corporate weblog manifesto." It was very helpful and I still enjoy looking at it today and thinking about whether I'm living up to this set of guidelines: http://scoble.weblogs.com
I regularly blogged that Google was kicking our ass (and told Bill Gates that personally and publicly after coming back from a visit to Google's headquarters).
People forget that I blogged at NEC, a big Japanese company, and at PodTech, a small startup, and Fast Company magazine, a media company, before landing at Rackspace, a public company.
At all of these I've been very aware that I work in an "at will" state, which means I can get fired for wearing the wrong T-shirt, if my boss wants, much less what I say in public.
At Microsoft we had a rule "be smart." What did that mean? You can be authentic, but don't blog about customers, don't blog financial numbers due to rules concerning public companies, don't blog about technology that hasn't yet been protected (IE, patents haven't been filed) but other than that I could pretty much blog about whatever I wanted. Yeah, I was aware of the political winds that blow. If you are smart you listen to those winds closely. I saw people get fired at other companies because they were stupid about how they presented their company in public.
One thing, though. If I ever found I wasn't blogging for a company I loved I moved on. At Microsoft that took three years (they tried to keep me, even giving me a large promotion and a nice title of "strategist" but I knew the company didn't have a good product pipeline and I wanted to go somewhere that did have a good pipeline. It gets old saying "Google's kicking our ass" without much in return.
I'm having a ball at Rackspace which has a good product pipeline and a great community strategy (we are told simply "be helpful"), which makes all the difference in the world.
Some things I've learned:
1. Don't write ANYTHING you don't want to see on the front page of the New York Times tomorrow.
2. Understand your role in life. At Rackspace I'm not the CEO, so I don't try to talk like the CEO. That said, I get around to places the CEO doesn't, so if I have some advice for him, I'll definitely post it.
3. Before you throw someone under the bus, put yourself in their shoes. I've thrown lots of people under the bus in my 10 years of blogging. Heck, just recently I told the CEO of GM that he should be fired. I posted that knowing that he just might know our CEO, which could cause us trouble. But, I put myself in his position and figured it was worth the risk to post that. It is something I'd say to his face, too. But, this is VERY risky in a public company, or, really, any company. If you ruin someone else's reputation or product launch, for instance, expect blowback.
4. Know the law. You better know the law surrounding financial results, patents, and other things, before you really screw up royally. I once spent a weekend with a lawyer from Microsoft learning how they think and getting up to date on what pisses them off. That was invaluable.
5. Culture is NOT a line in the sand, it is a membrane that you can push on. You better know how taut that membrane is, and how many people will hold you in if you get resistance from that membrane. Each person will have a different membrane (a contractor at Microsoft got fired for breaking an NDA once, if I did the exact same thing my boss would have shrugged it off). Each company has a different membrane, too. What I was doing at Microsoft was NOT tolerated at Google or Apple, for instance.
I wrote a set of rules for myself BEFORE I go to Microsoft, titled "the corporate weblog manifesto." It was very helpful and I still enjoy looking at it today and thinking about whether I'm living up to this set of guidelines: http://scoble.weblogs.com
Gil Yehuda, I am currently employed by Yahoo! Inc.
19 votes by Michael Howard, Shane Dillon, Marc Bodnick, (more)
Adam Lasnik, Served as Google's Search Evangelist ...
14 votes by Mona Nomura, Anon User, Surat Lozowick, (more)
Karen Wickre, Senior media liaison on communication...
13 votes by Tom Stocky, Anon User, Surat Lozowick, (more)
Derek Gathright, Yahoo Engineer
10 votes by Ryan Grove, Anon User, Aaron Zitzer, (more)Ryan Grove, Anon User, Aaron Zitzer, Jonas De Los Reyes, Surat Lozowick, Nate Lawrence, Nikhil Singh, Julie Neumann, Michael Mahemoff, and Andrew Shieh
Yury Lifshits, Scientist at Yahoo! Research
3 votes by Anon User, Pranay Manocha, and Laura Gluhanich
Richard G Russell, http://foredecker.wordpress.com/about/
7 votes by Anon User, David Molnar, Sean Weigold Ferguson, (more)Anon User, David Molnar, Sean Weigold Ferguson, Dave Beckett, Surat Lozowick, Jack Schofield, and Nate Lawrence
5 Answers Collapsed (Why?)
Downvoted:
Jesse Stay, App developer, blogger, author of Fac...
1 vote by Gil Yehuda
I find it ironic that this was posted by an anonymous user
Needs Improvement:
Jack Schofield, Technology journalist
You ask about Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and Facebook. Does that mean you don't think it's worth asking about Apple? ;-)
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1) "resent" is such a highly-colored word. It suggests anger directed at a person or organization, and fails to encompass the concept of more general "frustration" at a feeling of being constrained communications-wise.
2) "can't genuinely speak up" is pretty vague. Speak up about what? Stuff in various product spaces? Political issues? Legal issues? Workplace problems? Company leadership concerns?
Dysfunctional internal organizations have problems that can be solved, but it requires courage from both sides (employee and employer), the subject matter could be highly sensitive, and the risk to speak up is much greater for the employee, especially if they don't have a senior role. Not to mention, the energy and the opportunity cost involved into engaging in such matters.
I appreciate your comments.