I think what happened to Mark Jen is really sad and I feel bad for him. I think he made a mistake when he bloged about his company and I fully agree with Robert Scoble that Mark should wait until he become trusted by the company before starting blogging about it. Myself, I wont like it if a new employee say bad things about the company or criticizes its policies or managers. I think such employee who does not give him self time to really understand what is really going on in the company should be terminated since he would cause a lot of problems for the company by giving quick judgments and writing about them.
I think Mark should have talked to his boss and colleagues about these issues and he might get some answers which might change hid view of the company. He also mentioned that he wrote some comments about future products and I assume he wrote something against them which would might cause drop in sale for these products. I think if he went to his boss and told me about what he thought about these product or he wrote a report and file it to the involved department would be much better cause if his points are write they would conceder them and make changes otherwise they might explain their point of view and he probably would get credit for that.
I liked Mark standing what he believes in but we have to be careful and smart Robert said. In his blog Mark also mentioned that blog is a powerful tool and I agree with him but it can be for you and also it can be against you as we have seen more than a person were fired because of blogging.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
4 comments:
Majid-
You have a valid point about where you said "I wont like it if a new employee say bad things about the company or criticizes its policies or managers". You are pretty much putting yourself in the shoes of the CEO, which is a great way to look at it from that perspective and I truly agree with you.
As I had commented on Anna's blog, nowadays there are policies for employees that need to obey the rules in the organization. Mark Jen seems like he had broken that rule.Whether the company discloses its financial statements or other things, those information are confidential and are not to be discussed with anybody else outside the company.
So, yes Mark made a huge mistake and google had truly a reason to fire him.
You have a great point. For all the reading that we read until now nobody mention anything about if there are some restrictions or limtations in blogging. So really what should we write and what we shouldn't still not clear
Hey Majid, good analysis, I agree with you. I think my biggest mistake was not getting acclimated to the environment before starting to blog openly (and of course, the misfortune of it being a horrible culture mismatch :) ).
I did talk to management about the blogging I was doing before I was fired. Thing is, they said to feel free to continue blogging as long as I didn't talk about financials and future products (which I wasn't really talking about anyways). 2 days after that conversation, they fired me. A little strange, but well within their rights.
So I think it all depends on where you're working when you're doing the blogging. At Microsoft, employees are able to blog freely - and many do. At Google and Apple, not so much ;)
Hey Mark, Thanks a lot for comenting here. I did not know that you talked with them before blogging so I realy apologize for part of my post. It is very surprising that big company gives its employees the green light to do something then they punish them for doing so.
I think companies should have specialized regulations and rules for blogging since blogging now is very important tool and most people would like to participate in it. I think the employee should now exactly the red lines that he should not cross in blogging.
I agree with you it just depends in where you are working but it is sad that tech-company who offers blog service do so.
Post a Comment