In service organizations where part of the model is extremely high levels of expertise, I’ve found a tension arising where in order to
brand the firm, we need, to some extent, to brand the individuals within the firm. (Think Tom Peters and McKinsey.) While traditional
methods of firm/personal marketing, such as conference papers, books, articles, have managed to handle that tension, the new channel of
employee blogging doesn’t seem to have had time to do that yet.

I’d be interested in any experiences around the area of employee blogging, especially concerning ownership issues such as copyright on
content, and ownership of the channel and any associated branding equity[1]. Examples can be found here:

http://www.thoughtworks.com/what-we-say/blogs/all.html or here:
http://blogs.sun.com/

One particularly difficult question concerns new employees with pre-existing blogs, usually hosted someplace other than the firm’s own
servers. For example, among the Thoughtworks blogs above, you’ll find:

http://martinfowler.com/bliki/

And one of the Sun blogs is just a link to this:

http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/

Both Fowler and Bray have technical reputations that exist independently of their employers, which is to be expected (and is
entirely reasonable). So on the one hand, it seems sensible to allow them to continue to maintain their blog presence along with their
personal reputations once they join. On the other, if the blogging is being done on firm time and, regardless of when, on top of the firm’s
work, then if there’s any brand equity coming out of the blogging it should accrue at least in part, if not entirely, to the firm.

Grateful for any thoughts/experiences, and particularly for any examples of policy that balances control with the flexibility needed
by high-grade creative types.

thanks,
Tommy

[1] Obviously I’m thinking specifically of blogging on topics that fall within the firm’s area of business, as opposed to posting baby
pictures or stories about where someone went on vacation.

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