Business Blog Wire

A recent BusinessWeek article introduces "Mini-Microsoft," an anonymous MS employee (let’s hope it’s not Mr. Gates) whose blog has caused a tremendous stir in the corporate blogging world and provided news fodder for big Web publishers like CNET.  I’d like to see how Microsoft responds to Mini and the estimated 2,000 other Microsoft workers who are currently blogging (that’s BusinessWeek’s figure; no word yet on how many of them are blogging anonymously about their company.)

Certainly, blogging has made it easier for business employees to reveal and discuss juicy tidbits about their company - everything from "insider news" to complaints about the cafeteria food to deep, dark secrets about the boss (with photos to prove it!).  On the other hand, I can imagine the Big Brothers, the bosses, attempting to corral their employees with stricter corporate blogging policies, harsher penalties for running rumor mills, and maybe even - here it gets really Orwellian - hiring investigators to monitor workers’ activities and identify the "Minis" in their midst.

Could we call such investigations minihunts?

Hopefully we’ll companies dealing with blogging issues like this openly, by established rulebooks, rather than secretly, by cash under the table.  It’s a quickly unraveling scene, so we’ll have to keep watching every day for more developments.  What do you think?

Tags: No Comments