JD on EP

nb: Disclaimers, histories, and other contextual info down at the bottom.

Netiquette

This is the core issue -- how do you work with other people online?

"There's always a human at the other end of the line." Classic Virginia Shea... lots of other good core orientation at this link.

"Be conservative in what you send, liberal in what you receive." A longtime internet phrase which still applies today. Shorter, more to-the-point messages carry more communicative power than lengthy essays. (On the other hand, many people are persuaded by the length of an argument alone, but that's the difference between having a follower, and having an ally.)

"Let the strange person have the last word." You want to make your own best case. Some people will respond with how they are not convinced. You can lead a horse to water, but you cannot make him drink. If someone asks a question we have a duty to answer it, but if their goal is just to object, further speech will not necessarily improve things.

"If their first screenful of text doesn't get the idea across, just delete the rest." This still seems harsh to me! But it's practical folk-wisdom developed at The WELL, documented in in "Rules of the Net" by Gerard Van Der Leun and Thomas Mandel (Amazon). If you've got the time, sure, try to distill a long description into a practical question. But if someone isn't clear on what they're asking, then it's 50/50 whether it's possible to discover what they want, and someone else will likely gamble those costs for you anyway. It's triage -- ignore the impenetrable -- responsiblities work both ways.

"Find areas of agreement." There's a joke that the fastest way to learn online about how to do something is to post that it can't be done... people love to correct mistruth on the net, and there's a natural tendency to disagreement. Our goal is to converge on an understanding, not to have the conversation diverge and never reach conclusion. If a critic makes incorrect statements, start by looking for the underlying values that you both share, and build forward from there.

"Point to sources." Beware unsubstantiated claims, or what can be read as unsubstantiated claims. If someone could question your evidence, give them the tools they need to confirm what you say. Point to source information whenever possible.

Consider language use. Acronyms and mystic buzzwords should be defined in their first use. Although English is a common language on the net, most people do not use English as their first language. If you're trying to reach a larger audience, carefully evaluate whether the use of idiomatic speech or advanced vocabulary provides the additional richness that justifies the limitation in reach.

Speakership

Don't post anonymously, anywhere, on any company-related issue. It's often tempting, but is never worth the risk.

"Disclose your affiliations, or others will disclose them for you." Sock-puppetry, or even the perception of sock-puppetry, is very damaging... you're gaining a marginal advantage, at cost of substantial risk. If a conversation ever steers off-course into "Oh you tried to trick us!" then you've already lost the chance to get your idea across. Make sure each transportable chunk of text you produce conveys the context, and discloses your self-interest in the matter. Put your company affiliation into your sig or body text... let people know, up-front, how what you say might be shaded. It's too expensive otherwise.

"The company is the company, and you are just you." Yes, you're seen as a speaker for the group. No, not everything you write will have been formally approved by the group. You reflect the view of your working-group, but your group isn't responsible for your speech. The company will speak for itself, on the corporate website, with documents which have gone through many levels of review, homogenization, and testing. You can only speak for yourself, but you can do so quickly, honestly, and from your own limited perspective. One scope is not the other.

"Watch your pronouns." The words "we" and "I" are tricky in corporate blogging... a staff blogger can say "I think this" and "I think that" and be perfectly clear, but with phrases like "we think this", a careful reader will have to seek out how the author established that they were speaking for the group. Mark Twain said it best: "Only kings, presidents, editors, and people with tapeworms have the right to use the editorial 'we.'"

"Establish the authority for your speech." When making announcements, or otherwise being seen as explicitly speaking for the group, you have to establish the authority for your speech. Explain by what process you can use "the royal 'we'". "This text was reviewed by Adobe Legal" or "Harry Choates is the Product Manager for Adobe Cajun Fiddle" or -- best! -- "Here's the link to the announcement on Adobe.com"... all of these show the reader how much trust they can put in the words they're reading. Make it explicit; don't make the reader hunt.

"Point to the record, don't be the record." If you can't find an authoritative public link for a bit of news, then it's probably not your news to break.

"Point to the process, don't short-circuit the process." Companies have well-established ways to handle sales, support, partnerships, contests and more. If a customer can't find a solution to their problem through the public website, then the website's interface needs fixing. Work to fix the real problem, not just the current individual manifestation of the problem.

"The only write you because they care." If somebody types in a few thousand keystrokes to flame you... then count yourself lucky. That's a lot of work. They care about *something*, and hope that your colleagues will improve it. The biggest flames usually contain a truth.

"... and what happens next?" What will be the likely response to your speech? The more you slag a competitor, the more their fans will try to correct you. It may be cathartic to say something, but what will be the effect of your speech? What will happen next?

Keep it in the public record. When Scoble was hired he said that every "corporate blogger" should have their email and/or telephone exposed, but he quickly learned that his proposed mandate was unsustainable. This is particularly true when there's more than one public-facing staffer for a company, and multiple backchannel communications are handled simultaneously with the same customer. Different people have different strategies, but there's less confusion and duplication when conversations are kept in the public record. Whenever possible, keep the communicational channels transparent, don't make them opaque.

When routing internally, refactor the message to reduce reading costs. Lots of times field sales or other staff will pass along an email they received privately from a customer, without bothering to read if the message makes sense. Result: Every staffer who gets the email has to read the whole thing to try to find out what the customer actually wants. It's not very useful to pass on a few screenfuls of raw customer text and just put "Hey guys, any ideas?" at the top. Figure out what the customer actually wants -- and confirm it with them! -- then ask other staffers for that discrete deliverable. Summarize it up top.

Watch out for self-aggrandizement. It's seductive to be seen as the sole solution to all problems. This is particularly acute when few employees of the company have transparent public contact. Your goal is to help all customers of the company, not just the ones you have personal relationships with.

Bulletproof your text. Before posting, re-read what you wrote, looking for quotes which might be taken out of context and prompt objections elsewhere. What you really meant can be easily overwhelmed by what people think you meant. Give a final edit pass with a focus on how your text may be copied and misused.

It's difficult to speak of competitors. Negative comments will draw rejoinders; positive comments can prompt coworkers to wonder if you're on the take. Neutral news is always useful, but evaluative comments are always tricky to manage. Speculation on what competitors may do is particularly problematic. Customers will evaluate competitors, and can publish opinions, but all you can do is present the facts.

Before hitting "Send", do a final pass to check for spelling or grammatical errors. An individual has more leeway here than does a staffer.

Weblogs

There's lots of general advice about weblogs out there. Here I'm focusing on particular tips when you're an individual blogger who is also a member of a group.

If you've got an affiliation, makes sure it's disclosed on each page of your archive. A longer "About" page can be useful, but doesn't replace immediate, in-page disclosure.

Link to sources. Teach fishing; boost the people who feed you. If you received a useful bit of news, then show readers the source, and strengthen the overall ecology.

Keep open comments. (Over the past year or so, many bloggers have dealt with spam by refusing feedback... don't give in to moderation queues, because you'll always be vulnerable to charges of censoring the record.)

It's more valuable to take part in an existing conversation, than to orate on high from above. Go where the conversation is... don't expect people to read your monologues. Prove that the company "listens" by taking part in existing conversations.

Watch out for ad revenue. Yes, I know if you're hosting a weblog you might as well put AdSense on it. But you'll also regularly get questions on it from others, too. Your call.

Other staffers, who may not really understand weblogs, will encourage you to "please blog this press release". If you just reprint the press release or parrot the party line, you're actually diluting the message rather than amplifying it, by increasing the reading time of the public. Do link to a press release if you can add an original understanding or observation to it, and make your blogpost worth the reader's additional time.

Avoid teasing references to unannounced projects... "under promise and over deliver" trumps "building up the buzz". The reader's goals are more important than the writer's goals. Focus on the long-term effect.

For lengthy posts, summarize at the top and bottom. Giving the main point at the top helps guide readers whether they need to read more; summarizing at the bottom helps keep subsequent discussions on-track. Provide quotable text that others can use to accurately present your viewpoint in a snippet elsewhere.

If your text has been approved or reviewed by others, then disclose the production process of that text. It lessens ambiguity for readers, and provides the authority for your speech.

Reframe errors; don't delete them. Once you publish a document it is part of internet history. If your understanding evolves, then it's better to modify the original document -- keeping the original errant objectionable text, but putting it in context of your improved current understanding.

Be kind, be useful, be yourself, and have fun doing so. It's not worth doing anything else!

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Disclaimers: This is just me talking... no review of this text by others; isn't "Adobe's tips". I published this as a (relatively) quick draft, and will likely do invisible revisions over the next few days. Tone is as I'd speak naturally with a colleague, without as much priority given to general worldwide readership; no sucking-up or talking-down intended. [First draft: Monday evening, Jan 28. 1.0 draft and publishing: Thursday afternoon, Jan 31.]

History: That phrase "corporate blogging" first appeared on May 9 2002, in an article by Farhad Manjoo for WIRED. The issue that prompted the article? I made a mistake, and it took awhile for me to realize it. I had started a weblog, to supplement existing conversation on mailing lists and newsgroups, but hadn't really considered that strangers might start reading me. Meg Hourihan, one of the principals in the early (and preeminent) Blogger.com system, chanced upon the weblog, didn't immediately realize my affiliation, and had some concerns. I was befuddled, but we eventually worked things out... contemporaneous reporting from Jarle Bergersen, Matt Haughey, and Anil Dash. (btw, I learned of that WIRED article when I found it in a news search, and the history it describes is not quite the history I saw.... ;-) Bottom line: This is why I'm very insistent on that "Disclose affiliations!" principle now.... ;-)

Meta-history: All companies have had conversations with customers, all throughout history -- the practice didn't suddenly spring up this decade after self-help books were written on the subject. What *did* change twenty years ago was that business ecologies started having communications on computer networks, and over the past few years we've had instant publishing to the searchable Web ("blogs"). The first business communities which had customer conversations online were, logically enough, creative software companies, because all their customers had both computers and enthusiasm. These discussions started in individual bulletin boards, gained mass in the walled-garden systems of CompuServe and America Online, migrated to Usenet when this opened up, moved to mailing lists after people figured out spamming... weblogs just offered a way to consolidate a speaker's voice instead of typing the same thing into umpty-seven different mailing lists and newsgroups. I like Twitter now, because it forces people to get to the point, and cuts out all the adware problems. But all through history, every group effort has had to solve the problem of bringing back the customer voice into the business process... it's not a new issue at all, it's just the dynamics and options today which are novel. (And yes, "Cluetrain Manifesto" arrived after this was all going on, and didn't know where much of the actual action was.)