Advice to bloggers

One of the most clear evidence that the world is changing is when change hits our social tissue. We see it everyday when:

• more of us use the internet for writing, not just for reading;
• we create unsponsored global communities;
  
• we no longer solely depend on editors and opinion makers to get information;
  
• most of the young people expose what older people like myself consider information we'd rather maintain private (have you noticed how youngsters these days expose on HI5 photos we would hide only 20 years ago?);
• as a result of these changes, some people think they can just write about everything.
  

This later is often a problem when information is not about the blogger itself, but from the organization he or she works in.

Let's draw the line here: you can blog all you can about your private life (within your country/state ethical limits), but be extremely caution of what you blog about your organization.

As a generic rule, I just don't talk about:

• details about the organization I work for;
• specific problems I've encountered (ex: I could never send code I've found over the years to the Daily WFT);
• details about our customers;
• in general, specific information; and though I can always talk about abstract and generic problems, I try not to do it on the day it happens, so that no relation can be found between the event that triggered it and the consequent analysis;
• the rare articles I've posted about specific people and situations were previously authorized by the interested parties.

This rules apply even to past organizations and customers. And they should be kept as long as we see ourselves as professionals.

Organization should also define the limits upfront, just to make sure no line is unintentionally crossed.

PS: as an exception, maybe a book on my retirement, what to you think? :P

PS2: I exclude from my rules the need for authorization to reference other articles, though I always keep the link to them.