Blogs and Organizations

Blogs are an open diary to anyone to read and the convey information to a third party. In an organizational environment Blogs are useful because they “allow millions of people to easily publish and share their ideas, and millions more to read and respond” (Welcome to Technorati). Hence, with blogs, individuals from all the levels of the organization can share their ideas openly, thus, increasing the productivity of an organization. However this new technology also has some disadvantages, it can create conflict between an employer and an employee. For instance, according to USA Today, a delta airline employee recently sued Delta airlines after posting pictures of herself in her uniform (Delta emplyee..) . Hence, if employees use a blog with the intellectual property of an organization it can cause some serious legal problems .Blogs can also be very dangerous for organizations because classified information may be distributed without permission. To illustrate, a Microsoft employee lost his job after “he took some pictures of Apple G5 computers being unloaded onto the software company's campus and posted them to his blog” (Hansen). Hence, delicate information can be conveyed through blogs which can be disastrous for an organization. To conclude, blogs can be beneficial or troublesome for organizations.

References:

Welcome to Technorati,Technorati Media,

http://technoratimedia.com/about/

Delta employee fired for blogging sues airline, USA Today,

http://www.usatoday.com/travel/news/2005-09-08-delta-blog_x.htm

Hansen, Evans, Google Blogger has left the Building, CNET news, February 8, 2005,

http://news.cnet.com/Google-blogger-has-left-the-building/2100-1038_3-5567863.html