This is a rant on professional courtesy that I wrote earlier this year. Professional courtesy extends far beyond the realm of blogging. However, in blogging it becomes very obvious and very direct.
There are two sets of advice that every blogger dreads hearing from someone that doesn't understand how blogging works. I've been confronted with this so many times I have lost count but hopefully I can provide a humorous twist to how I take this advice with the grain of salt:
"Could you blog this…"
About 99% of the time the answer is obviously no. This request generally comes from a marketing / sales guy that figured just because you wrote about them or their company you would love to become a part of their marketing outlet. God help you if you wrote about their competitors product, they'll try to turn you into consumer reports investigator.
I get this particular one at least once or twice a day. "Hey, noticed you talked about product XYZ, our ABC does the same and then some – have you checked it out? <insert sales pitch here>"
No dear, I have not. And if everyone on earth died and miraculously I was the only one left with all the bandwidth on the earth I would still have better things to do than amuse the boredom of people that don't want to spend 20 seconds to post a comment or understand how this blogging thing works. That "Post a Comment" link… yeah, that.. You click on that and you speak your mind.
"Psst. Don't blog this. The deal is…"
This is actually pretty sad.
Nobody that ever said "don't blog this" ever followed that up with anything I would ever put on my blog to begin with. Honestly, I don't think people that are outside of the "blogosphere" actually understand what blogging is all about. Bloggers are part to blame for some of it as well.
Here is a hint: we're not citizen journalists. Some love to think they are. I for one don't. I take pride in my refusal to use spell/grammar checking on Vladville. I take pride in putting together posts between phone calls and emails. Others don't even notice how poorly they write but they still consider themselves journalists. One glance at the first paragraph of their post reveals that it was actually written by a 7th grader. Whats even worse is that they probably spent hours working on it.
I'm going to be smug for a moment: I spent a lot of time, money and effort to get my engineering and business degrees, lost a lot of hair over very hot computer systems to earn my MCSE and spend 95% of my day doing either high end infrastructure work or talking about it. I personally consider it an insult that someone would consider me to be media or a journalist.
Here is another dirty secret about journalists and media in general: they rarely get the story right. If someone asks you for a quick interview you'll likely find your quotes taken out of context in articles months from now on a completely separate topic. So why anybody would lean in to a potential "journalist" and give them the scoop is beyond me – maybe its a Jedi mind trick – "If I tell them this is confidential maybe they will consider it to be really important!"
The final tip: Never say don't blog/talk about this. If you are talking to someone and have even a remote reason to think that you'll find the words you're about to say posted on a blog… you might not want to say them to begin with. Also, think about what this says about you as a person and a professional – you are about to give away either priviledged or confidential information to a complete stranger that you obviously don't trust enough not to put your entire conversation on a web page that nobody will ever read!
But wait, it gets even worse! When you turn to someone and say, "Psst. Don't blog this" what the other person actually hears is:
Hi,
I'm a 12 year old girl that whispers behind peoples back. Please don't post on your web site about this or they will know what an asshole I really am.
Every time you talk to someone you give away the impression of your character. If you treat people differently face to face as opposed to behind their back the others will see that. They will expect you to do the same to/about them behind their back.
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