So, it’s now officially OK for IBMers to blog. I read their policy guidelines with interest, since I led the drafting of the Sun version when we launched just over a year ago. The IBM policy is remarkably consistent with ours, there are only a few differences that leap out at me. First, there is specific advice to “speak in the first person”, which I think is excellent and we should steal next time we do a revision. Second, under the heading “Add value” there is language that makes it pretty clear that blogs on IBM properties are supposed to be about IBM’s business and not much else. I guess this is reasonable, but it would rule out things like our globalful and Isa, which add some chuckles to the world and don’t cost much. Even our mostly-tech blogs regularly veer out into off-the-job territory, for example, I just hopped over to blogs.sun.com and out of the most recent posters picked chandanlog(3C). Hmm. Finally, under the heading “Don’t pick fights” (who could disagree) there is a flat statement “You should avoid arguments”, and that’s just wrong. Human intellectual progress relies heavily on arguing things out, some guy named Socrates was a pioneer. About three-quarters of my job consists of arguing with people about one thing or another, how could I not do it here? A blogosphere without arguments would be a poor, thin, boring place. Still, it’ll be nice to have IBM around, and here’s my advice to to all the incoming Big Blue bloggers: don’t forget to have fun.
