So the results are in: 85% disagreed with the "provocative question" of whether employers should curb their staff from reading blogs in the workplace. Thanks the stars for common sense...but this is just the beginning of what I think is a much larger issue.
That said, according to the Ad Age poll, "Results were skewed by Gawker.com, which linked our poll to its site and urged the poll reading public to weigh in. Not surprisingly, that audience upended earlier results in which a much slimmer majority - 58% - said employers should allow blog reading at work."
First of all, thanks for the mention Ad Age. I too linked to your poll...and although I'm not Gawker, the results were 82:18 with about 1 hour to go in the poll. Can you imagine the influence that would have been exerted had Jaffe Juice linked earlier (grin)?
In all seriousness and also to clarify my position and my previous post, where I accused Ad Age of being self serving with this poll...and while that is a subjective comment, one which a more mainstream journalist might not have insinuated (but hey, I'm just a scrappy blogger...what the hell do I know), I'm not sure how this caveat about Gawker does anything other than speak to my point; if anything however, it does demonstrate the "engagement" and active mindset of those in and around the blogosphere...how a stimulated mind can be bad is beyond me (see below)
Furthermore (and in the spirit of presenting both sides of the story, which is what I'm told legitimate journalists - other than at Forbes - tend to do): To the person(s) who e-mailed me about educating me about the difference between a "question" and a "point of view" as it related to Ad Age's justification behind asking this "provocative question", as well as accusing me of being "short on substance", let me direct you in fact to Ad Age's "point of view" in their Viewpoint section on 10/31, Page 23, which really does offer a strong and considered perspective: blogs and work should be mixed...blogs are not a waste of time...enlightened employers need to recognize the value they get when staffers are engaged in the world of business and the world of life.
Bravo! It's a pity you published this perspective one week prior to asking the "provocative question"...I guess the delivery is all in the timing.
Ad Age...please (re)publish this editorial online (and alert me when you do...I'll be only too happy to blog it) Also if you really want to get to the bottom of this, ask people to indicate if they're a blogger or not in order to get truly obective results (Gladwell is retching right now)
My issue with the Ad Age poll was that the "provocative question" should have been caveated with a clear distinction between business blogs (world of business) and personal blogs (world of life...which is arguably merited). We humans are lazy...and we tend to look at pretty pictures, poll results and other quantitative top-line assessments (which may or may not be out of context) and make assumptions or leap to dangerous or flawed conclusions.
My fear was/is that this adds unnecessary fuel to a fire which needs to be extinguished. Quickly.
The more concerning matter is the fact that an increasing number of corporations are curtailing the use of the web (never mind blogs) from their employees.
Did you know that employees at ESPN can't even access ESPN.com??? It's a Disney thing...
I wouldn't be surprised (extreme maybe, but not improbable) that employees begin to resign and move to similar companies - if for no other reason than their ability to access the entire web freely.
To be sure, there are without question certain freedoms that are coming into play and short-sighted employers had better figure out that they will be better off in the long run if they (for the upteenth time) let go of control....and just let things be. To quote the Ad Age editorial again, "let employees read the damn blogs...as long as they deliver"
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