Lucky I Don't Work For JCN
To its credit, IBM has published blogging guidelines for its employees.
Some major employers such as IBM are passing first-of-a-kind employee blogging guidelines designed to avoid problems, such as online publishing of trade secrets, without stifling the kind of blogs that also can create valuable buzz about a company....
In May, IBM unveiled blogging guidelines for its 329,000 employees. The guidelines state that employees should identify themselves (and, when relevant, their roles at IBM) when blogging about IBM.
"You must make it clear that you are speaking for yourself and not on behalf of IBM," the guidelines state.
For the record, I never blog about my employer, for a myriad of reasons. But read on for the IBM guidelines:
The guidelines also say that bloggers should not use "ethnic slurs, personal insults, obscenity, etc." and that they "show proper consideration" for "topics that may be considered objectionable or inflammatory -- such as politics and religion."
I suspect that my repeated references to Communists, Fascists, and baby seal clubbers wouldn't be approved by HAL. Oops, that's a myth:
Let me digress and take this ACM Challenge as a good chance dispel a myth that has grown up around 2001. The story has it that the name HAL was chosen because each letter is just one step ahead of IBM. However, this is pure coincidence, and in fact the first incarnations of the computer had a woman's voice, and was called "Athena," goddess of wisdom. When someone pointed out the spurious association between HAL and IBM, Kubrick wanted to change the computer's name and refilm the scenes, but was disuaded because of production costs. (For the record, HAL comes from "Heuristically programmed ALgorithmic" computer.)
Just as well. "Zookd" or "GO" just don't seem to work.
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