Couple of posts to review.
First out: Dare unloads on Mike Arrington. IMHO, cheap shot, not super grounded in reality, out of place for what Dare normally writes about.
Next up: Mike responds. Okay, he was rightly ticked off and didn’t pull any punches. But it got interesting when he said, bold mine:
This isn’t ok from anyone, and it really isn’t ok from a high profile Microsoft blogger. This is the second time Obasanjo has attacked us when we disagreed with him. It’s one thing to disagree. But it’s another to attack (first Wikipedia, then this F’d company comparison) when you face disagreement. And when you represent a company, whether you like it or not, you do it under their brand. In this case, given the weakness of Obasanjo’s argument, and the fact that he just had a one sided flame war with TechCrunchIT, his motives were clear. It’s time for Microsoft to stop this nonsense.
Multiple tweets ensue. Some are more cogent than others, but I would call them all more heat than light.
Finally, Robert Scoble weighs in, with an assist from Steve Gillmor. His point:
But the stone that made the scale tip is that you have employees out there who are attacking bloggers without consequences. That makes me feel unwelcome, which I really don’t need given all my other concerns about attending.
I’m going to tackle these things one at a time and give my perspective as someone who has been watching bloggers and blogging evolve over time.
1. Dare’s post is what it is. It’s opinion. The only difference between this post and about a gazillion others is that Dare works for Microsoft and has a relatively high profile blog. His blog is not hosted by Microsoft, and he’s previously noted that his views are not necessarily those of the company. If he was writing a movie review, nobody would care. But Dare, you need to step up – like it or not, you are a loud voice at the company, and you should think harder about that when you blog. With great power comes, etc. and so on.
2. Mike is right to be grumpy. I’m not very happy when people use part of what I’ve said against me either. But the link he made between Dare and Microsoft is not accurate. There is zero linkage between what dare thinks about TechCrunch and Mike and what the big M thinks. Less than zero. So Mike -- direct return fire where it goes – Dare – and don’t expand.
3. Robert knows better. Seriously. His experience at MS gives him a way better perch to opine here than anyone else, myself included. He knows that there is no omnipresent blogger watch at Microsoft, no person or team who scans/reviews/approves blog posts. What exactly kind of consequences should Microsoft be applying against Dare? Tell him to keep his non tech opinions off his personal blog? C’mon. Let’s say that the mythical blog squad moved in and cleaned out his office – you know what would lead Techmeme in the morning? “Microsoft silences blogger.” You know it. All the other voices, all the other tweets are reaction to what should be a non-event. Taking a hammer out now solves nothing and creates bigger problems down the line. Robert: come to PDC or don’t, but please go/don’t go for the right reason, not because of a spat like this.
Everyone else. Can we move on now? And yes, there is a lesson here – bloggers DO have an impact on the company for which they work, all protestations and sidebars on web sites aside. So companies out there should remember this, as should bloggers. I still think the common sense approach works. Think of it like this: you are getting up to make a speech in front of 150,000 people. You are introduced: And here is Sam Smith, famous blogger and employee of Corporation X! Think the audience is going to separate out what you say about topic 1 and topic 2 and what Company X does/thinks? I don’t. So keep things pure. If an individual is going to have a personal blog, keep it personal. If you are going to have a work blog, stay on topic.
BTW, this blog is a work blog, where I write about the changing nature of communications, and not so much about my day job leading the Microsoft account for Waggener Edstrom. And also about cooking with sourdough starter and sometimes about running, but you get my point. ;)