More blogging off the cliff

Hey, let's all write blogs about the inner workings of our companies, warts and all. . . . Transparency is the rage, you know.

But before we get cracking, let's make sure our résumés are polished and our bank accounts can withstand a stretch of unemployment.

Yes, that's my snide way of saying that this corporate blogging stuff is veering off the road - and that absolutely no one should be surprised by the turn.

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Hey, let's all write blogs about the inner workings of our companies, warts and all. . . . Transparency is the rage, you know.

But before we get cracking, let's make sure our résumés are polished and our bank accounts can withstand a stretch of unemployment.

Yes, that's my snide way of saying that this corporate blogging stuff is veering off the road - and that absolutely no one should be surprised by the turn.

The latest flap popped up last week with press coverage of a "rant" by a technical recruiter at Microsoft, Gretchen Ledgard, on a company-sponsored, public blog that is read primarily by job candidates sniffing around Redmond.

Ledgard, who has since apologized, clearly had an inkling beforehand that she was about to blog out of bounds.

"Yesterday, I set up an internal blog so I could post my various rants to a 'safe' audience," Ledgard explains in a follow-up to the post that touched off the tempest. "Josh told me this was lame. Anything I want to rant about related to recruiting should probably be ranted about on the external blog. I think he's right, but it's also difficult to properly judge my safety net at times."

Take this time, for example. Josh is Gretchen Ledgard's husband, who also works and blogs at Microsoft. His advice to his wife was so wrong, and the consequences so unpleasant, that you've got to wonder if it ultimately left him sleeping on the couch for a few nights. (Josh Ledgard declined my invitation to comment; his wife suggested I contact Microsoft public relations.)

Back to Gretchen Ledgard's original blog entry:

"My latest tirade revolves around hiring managers (and I'm referring to Microsoft hiring managers . . . but I know this problem exists in other companies) not 'getting' the talent landscape. . . . They can't seem to get it through their heads that 1) Microsoft isn't the only place hiring, 2) Working at a big company isn't everyone's dream, and 3) Redmond is not the first place people say they want to move when they wake up in the morning. . . . So I guess I've just been really tired of (pardon my bluntness) the entitled, spoiled whiners lately. . . . They pay me the big bucks to be an expert on hiring for the company. You do your job; I'll do mine. Plus, you don't see me getting in your business every time some Microsoft program crashes on me, do you?"

Now that's hitting 'em where it hurts.

It should go without saying - but obviously doesn't - that such bluntness is ill-advised and almost certainly counterproductive in any interdepartmental business exchange. It borders on professional suicide when delivered undiluted out on the Internet. The post drew howls from within Microsoft, in addition to unwelcome press attention.

Gretchen Ledgard, who still has a job, understands that she screwed up.

"My blog entry, while true to my thoughts and balanced with my other positive spins on Microsoft issues, was extremely unpolished and unprofessional," she writes in a later post. "I have learned a big lesson. . . . For all that I advise others about how to be good corporate bloggers, I sure didn't take my own advice."