Biting blogs

Ms. Trammel asks if blogs can come back to bite you, and provides a number of examples of cases in which they have. This might be of particular interest to an academic in the job market, given that search committees inevitably google their best candidates. But this seems like a small nibble given the upside.

I would hate to think what someone would find if they googled me without my blog. At the very least, it provides me a right-of-reply for those who would intentionally or inadvertently put a less than favorable spin on my life. Indeed, I consider the blog in some ways to be an organ of public relations, a way of managing my personal identity.

I also use it as a way to communicate with my future self. I am candid and try to be extremely honest, both of which I believe to be less harmful to my future than some may think. If something in this record offends a future potential employer or friend, then they are offended by my past, and I am unlikely to want to have a continued relationship.

Because I am candid and honest here, I shape my actions in such a way that I won’t have too much to be ashamed of in my blog. Correct speech leads to correct action. This, in some ways, is what PR ought to be like for a corporation, but it almost never is.

(Why? Because humans are inherently good, and corporations are inherently evil, to oversimplify… Except for the company that the 40-year-old-me is trying to land a consulting gig with. You, sirs and madams, are beyond reproach.)

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2 Comments

  1. Posted 1/19/2004 at 10:43 am | Permalink

    Very good points Alex. But for that reason one may find more self-editing prior to posting. Instead of going “all the way” on an opinion one might just push it so far (stop short). There is still an opinion & expression, but it may not be to the truest degree. This would be different for every person. What if the ever-opinionated InstaPundit were holding back? What if I, the ever on-topic poster, were holding back? You touched on an excellent part of this – it is all PR.

  2. Posted 1/19/2004 at 11:52 am | Permalink

    i fully expect my blog to bite me sometime, i post too much political commentary and such. but i have a clear choice, i can post what i want and be who i am and let people choose that, or i can pretend to be someone i’m not and then be unhappy when someone chooses to hire me for the constructed qualities. I’d rather just post what i want, write how i want, and let people know that my blog is a hobby not my profession.

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