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I work in eLearning and educational technology at a large university in Sydney, and perhaps not unlike other universities, the trend in interest at mine is towards emerging technologies, and particularly social software. Suddenly my late night passion for blogging and tinkering with every application I can get my hands on has become an asset and I'm now seen as one of the key subject matter experts in my unit and increasingly across the uni.
It's a very pleasant change and I'm quite grateful for the recognition. Though with that said it's also increasingly difficult to tell where work ends and my personal hobbies begin.
The quandary that's plaguing me currently is whether to make my eLearning/emerging tech blog, The Tech Ticker, common knowledge amongst my colleagues - and also significantly whether to go on record and state my university by name online.
Historically I've been quite reluctant to do this because of my political stances and tendency to pontificate and rant, but the way I present my thoughts has really changed over the last 18 months and the thought of being read by work colleagues isn't so frightening anymore.
Therefore, I'm trying to decide where I sit on the following two questions:
- Do I openly refer to The Tech Ticker with work colleagues as an example the technology?
- Do I publicly name my university in my blog?
Presently more and more staff on campus and across higher education in Australia are starting to ask the questions:
- What is a blog and how do I start one?
- What are the most effective ways to use them in higher education?
- What opportunities do they offer?
I've always subscribed to the belief in separation of business and pleasure, and particularly politics - so an outcome of this would be a blurred division between the two.
The compelling argument in favour of referencing my blog though is the fact real world case studies are more effective examples than theory. Telling people blogging is a useful means of communication and collaboration is only so useful. Demonstrating it is even better and could prove to be a very effective way of indoctrinating staff into the benefits of social software, commenting, open flow of communication, sharing and reuse of information.
The second question of whether or not to name my university in my blog relates to the topic of legitimacy in the online realm. I had the tremendous opportunity of being quoted in TechCrunch this week in their post "Twitter Fails Macworld Keynote Test" (which quoted 3 entire paragraphs of this post), and this really inspired my confidence to actually start acting like a subject matter expert.
However to a fair degree I think anonymity begets skepticism. People want to know who you are, where you're from, and why they should listen to you before they'll take you seriously. I've explained who I am to a degree; but I can't help but feel this will only go so far, and nothing less than full disclosure will be taken seriously in respected contexts.
On the other hand I can't help but feel like Pandora gazing at the infamous box.
With that said, I would really appreciate you taking a few minutes to respond to this poll and particularly to share your experiences and comments in the comment section.
14 comments:
Hi Mike,
I can't take part in the poll because I work for myself so the questions aren't relevant.
I think you've covered some of the benefits of disclosure really well in the post - credibility, sharing, demonstration of expertise, agent for change etc.
Does the uni have a blogging policy for employees? They probably should if they don't already.
I do bioblogging so there is no reason for my workplace to know about it, nor do I mention my workplace because I would hate for my workmates to stumble across it.
However, your situation is different. You are writing a technical blog that relates to your profession. If you are starting to get recognition in your field then I think it might be a wise move to announce your blog to your workmates.
@Christine - Thanks for the input. I'm increasingly starting to think that naming my role and uni is justified and appropriate. That said I'm still going to wait a couple of days to see what other perspectives are shared here.
Surprisingly I don't think the uni has a policy on staff blogs currently - be they hosted by the uni or privately maintained yet covering related subject matter. I'm looking into this currently.
If policy on this matter is lacking I'm with you - they definitely need one, and I'll definitely make that recommendation.
@Riayn - I'm with you on bioblogging. In fact I've always been reluctant to share most personal stories of any kind except for fairly superficial anecdotes. You just can't be too careful in terms of what you share about your family online these days.
Regarding sharing my blog with my workmates, I've done it to a minor degree (my supervisors and unit director included), but this is only very recently and I wasn't completely convinced as to whether it was a good idea or not.
I had positive results though - quite positive in fact - so I'm taking that as a positive sign moving forward.
so... they like your music then???
I think I just posted my response to this on another of your posts some place????
Being the owner of my business, this is not such an issue for me in the workplace. However, I do take care regarding any current or potential clients who may happen across my blog. I do not post the name of my company, but I do have my name and my location on my blog. And if it comes to the aspect of "being taken seriously" when it comes to issues I am knowledgeable about, well those posts go to another blog or message board that is appropriate for the information I'm trying to convey. I mean seriously, think about it... if I want to get across an opinion about something of which I am considered knowledgeable, why would I want to post it on a blog that may or may not get read by those who would be the most interested in seeing it? That's equivalent to posting an op-ed piece on renewable energy resources in a singles magazine.
I'm a tax expert. I have things to say from time to time on the subject. If I want to be taken seriously, I'm going to find a community board or similar outlet to post those things. I'm not going to put it on my personal blog and hope it gets found and further still hope its going to get taken seriously when others read my usual personal rantings along side.
Not being in this position, I honestly cannot really offer an informed opinion. However, I do offer this question:
IF your work colleagues knew about this blog, AND read it, and you KNEW they would, or might even only possibly read it, would that alter what you wrote in anyway shape or form?
If the answer is yes, then I would suggest setting up another blog that you could import or copy previous posts into to show your blogging experience, and therefore verifying your expertise on the subject and aiding your credibility. Then you could keep this one as a private one so to speak and keep blogging on the other one. I think that there does need to be some small measure of separation between work and home life, but that is just me and there are plenty of people out there who have successfully managed to combine the two. It does make sense considering your area of work.
Cheers, Kelly
I see that you have indeed answered your own question....and also the reason for a little silence around here of late!
What I find even more interesting is that you may indeed be someone who can help me in the near future....in a professional sense that is :)
Cheers, Kelly
@unique_stephen - Yeah you're last comment went on my About Me page :) And yes they do like my music - a bit too much so sometimes LOL. Every bloody staff meeting that takes place somebody has to blurt out my YouTube username and encourage everyone to go there for a listen :) I get the piss taken out of me constantly LOL - isn't so bad though really ;)
@tridian - I ended up dividing up my blogs between personal and tech for more or less that reason. Initially I started writing about tech stuff because I was interested in it, not because I thought anyone else could care less.
After a while I started to see a fair amount of traffic coming through on some of the tech posts, which still amazes me for the same reasons you mentioned. Why the hell would anybody come here for that - but came they did.
Then work started to talk about the topic though. That's what really motivated me to separate the two trains of thought. I figured it was only a matter of time before someone asked to see what a blog looked like, and it didn't bode well if the two trains of thought were still routed through the single site.
I don't personally worry about people connecting the dots and finding their way here though - I've tempered my rants over time (at least to something half-way eloquent). Besides, as my supervisor pointed out after running across how many bloody accounts I have on the web "Mike, you have a HUGE internet footprint!" There's no way I could avoid being discovered now...
@debambam (Kelly) - Yes I did take the plunge, though I have to thank many of the responses here for contributing to that decision. Yes I had been leaning that general direction, but the thoughts of everyone here has re-affirmed the logic.
Helping in a professional sense, eh? I'm happy to do what I can - perhaps we should take this offline?
@all - thanks for the input everyone. You're assistance is much appreciated!
Cheers,
Mike
Bit late for my vote then I guess.
Being ateacher I'd rather not lay the dirty washing out for the kids to use as ammo...
We have a district wide web/blog system up with our schools now so the work related stuff gets fed through that- and boy is it time consuming. web2 tech sounds good but is blurring the distinction between personal and professional time- many hours at home conferencing with students, finding resources, correcting and the like, i dare say it will take a while for the unions and workplace relations to catch on...and up!
Hey Mike, it looks like you're working your way to resolving the previous issue of whether to keep two blogs or roll-over the tech stuff into this blog. I guess if you do go public at work about your blog(s), I'd keep the tech blog separate and only publicise that. That leaves you a free hand to still rave all you want here - I'll miss your raves if you have to reign in your thoughts and words about life, politics, and how shitty work was making your life!
So, my suggestions are: 1) tell work about your tech blog (for the reasons above, and it is a good way to demonstrate blogging.) Yes, seize the role of subject matter expert!
2) Don't reveal which university you work for – not so much to protect your university, but yourself. You don't want to give your employer a reason to put pressure on your for what you have to say on your blog – avoid the potential for conflict where you employer may be unhappy with some of the remarks you make in technology reviews or other reviews, and may feel uncomfortable with being seen as endorsing your views. Avoid the conflict in the first place. Al the same, it would help to add a line, eg in your bio, that the views expressed are yours alone etc etc.
This is also in the original spirit of blogging - where bloggers felt that we could say what we believed in all honesty and openness, and not feel beholden to the interests or desires of employers, advertisers, sponsors, capital.
In my situation, I have mentioned to some colleagues that I have a blog, but I have not shown it to any of them (partly because I'd be embarrassed if they reallise I do some blogging during work hours!)
Also, I'm not open about who I work for on my blog because I often write on topics that my work is involved in/concerned with (I work for a policy/advocacy body in the community sector), and I don't want my stuff to compromise my employer (I care about them) - and this allows me to remain intemperate (if I desire) and write fearlessly.
I will probably find myself in your situation later this year, as my workplace is about to roll out a whole new website with new webtools etc, and (on my very subtle suggestion) have decided to include blogs on the site for staff to use - mainly to keep each other and our readers informed of progress of our work. So, I may be in position of having to show people what blogging is about and showing mine as an example! So, I'm very interested in how you work through this scenario.
By the way - don't worry about wanting to remain 'anonymous' - people should be interested in what we say and write for the content, and only a bit of our backgrounds. Our 'authority' and 'authenticity' should come as much - or more - from our words and deeds as from who people think we are.
Further -
Privacy is harder to protect on-line than you may think. Its a small world out there. Just looking at your blogrole and I noticed that the professional page of a (now very public and very high profile) x-girlfriend is only two clicks away. I don't post about her but there are hints here and there in other comments I have left on other blogs about my previous 'lifestyle' that google would make short work of finding and which would expose a world that, whilst I have no shame in having lived I'm sure that she wouldn't appreciate her detractors being able to dig up.
My feeling is don't name the uni, because trouble comes of it often as not. But as the last commenter notes, anonymity is a nebulous on the intertubes. As for telling your co-workers, my former employers knew I had a blog but I would never name the law firm or talk about the clients there for the obvious reasons of professional confidenitiality. Of course my politics were well known and meshed well with theirs in any event so the content wasn't a problem.
You do have to out yourself though if you want to establish creds as an expert. I think you should keep the tech blog seperate for that reason and because you have a lot of personal stuff here that could become ammo for trolls and dissenters. The tech world can get amazingly vitriolic from what I can see.
Hey, Mike. You've been quiet here for a while on the blog post front. Just wondering if you're okay. Things must be busy.
I see from your twitter that you're still active – and busy – so that's great to see.
No pressure, but hope to hear from you soon – maybe a photo or story of what's been happening?
I tell my place of work that I blog, and several of my work colleagues do check it out and let me know when I've written something useful - one even posts comments or sends private email responses, which is always unexpected but cool. I promote it to them because I want them to have a go at blogging themselves and to try it out with their (eager) students - I help coordinate Departmental run professional educational blogging projects, and am used to supporting teacher learning. I'm leading my example, I guess.
I don't directly name the place, but anyone with Google could join the dots easily. I do like to keep my posts positive and constructive on my professional learning blog, so if I'm ever critical about anything, I always emphasise the steps I'm taking to resolve the problem.
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