Blogging

I was recently quoted in a CIO Update article on corporate blogging. From a security standpoint, clearly there are risks in terms of information leakage. But not much else. Blogging needs to be governed by a separate, but similar policy to both the Internet and email acceptable use policies. Yes, your general counsel needs to be involved, as distasteful as that may be. But the security "risk" is really secondary to the other big issue with blogging - brand risk.

Basically, blogging is an extension of your corporate brand and it needs to be the marketing department that takes the ball on communicating what is acceptable, and more importantly, what is not! Just like you have folks that are checking out the news wires and advertisements to make sure your brand(s) is not abused, you need to now keep track of the blogosphere.

And you need to enforce the policies. Not to the point of being draconian, but to the point of making sure that everyone knows what the policies are and that you are going to enforce them.

But if you have any bright ideas about limiting blogging on the part of your employees, forget it. That train has left the station and the negative PR of shutting that stuff down is not worth it. So try to use it to your advantage and put a more personal face on your company.

Check out the article here: http://www.cioupdate.com/trends/article.php/3625031