I found this incident disturbing, despite Niall’s apology/retraction. I am inclined to side with Kottke’s original take on this; there is a lot of irony that a company who makes its living off of blogs would want its employees to submit their personal blog content for corporate editorial review. Viewed in a cynical light this policy is dictatorial; viewed in a charitable light it is a public relations blunder.
Yet…I am of two minds on this. Niall has obviously identified himself as a Technocrati employee, so anything he writes about the web — which is a large part of his life — can concern the members of his company.
I don’t know if there is a single answer to this issue, but it is certainly one that is facinating and that we will be seeing more and more of.
In case readers arrive here directly from a search engine, I want to link to my post on March 8 with clarifications and updates. I don’t think Kottke’s headline was exactly fair, and to his credit he has changed it. I try not to edit posts to change their meaning after the fact, so I’ll leave this one as-is, while at the same time pointing to the more recent – and fairer – entry.
Niall Kennedy says
Hi Mikel,
I posted some more details on my weblog if you are interested in learning more about what happened.
beerzie boy says
I found this incident disturbing, despite Niall’s apology/retraction. I am inclined to side with Kottke’s original take on this; there is a lot of irony that a company who makes its living off of blogs would want its employees to submit their personal blog content for corporate editorial review. Viewed in a cynical light this policy is dictatorial; viewed in a charitable light it is a public relations blunder.
Yet…I am of two minds on this. Niall has obviously identified himself as a Technocrati employee, so anything he writes about the web — which is a large part of his life — can concern the members of his company.
I don’t know if there is a single answer to this issue, but it is certainly one that is facinating and that we will be seeing more and more of.
Michael says
In case readers arrive here directly from a search engine, I want to link to my post on March 8 with clarifications and updates. I don’t think Kottke’s headline was exactly fair, and to his credit he has changed it. I try not to edit posts to change their meaning after the fact, so I’ll leave this one as-is, while at the same time pointing to the more recent – and fairer – entry.