DISQUS

Dave Martin · 1 year ago

Bravos, Sarah. It is high school, with money.

Mark Dykeman · 1 year ago

Sorry, I draw a blank. Beyond my ability to explain.

Scobleizer · 1 year ago

Um, what got me over the top is the posts like yours that you aren't representing your company online. That's bull. Every interaction you have with a potential customer, especially when you self identify who you are working for and you participate online in discussions about the industry your employer is in, represents your company to the world. That's why Microsoft's blogging policy is "be smart" or "don't be stupid." I ALWAYS blogged knowing I was representing other people when I was at Microsoft. If your blog was only about quilting I might feel differently, though.

sarahintampa · 1 year ago

Well, I'm not a Microsoft employee so...

and if Microsoft or ReadWriteWeb or any other blog I contributed to told me what I was or was not allowed to say on my personal website, I would have a big problem with that.

n8k99 · 1 year ago

i stopped following mike arrington and scoble's blogs several months ago, especially after finding out that i was constantly being lead around by my nose over something which under no normal circumstances i would ever be concerned with. those guys are just tossing sheep.

Dan Thornton · 1 year ago

I'm afraid while I can understand how the public feud at the centre of this developed, I really don't get how responding with hissy fits actually helps the situation, whether that's from Mike getting into some snide digs, or Robert deciding not to attend an event.

Maybe they just both had a bad day, but the professional way to have responded for Mike would have been to simply lay out the facts and leave it there - and for Robert to make decisions about event attendance without bringing any blogging disagreements into the same post and muddying things.

The fact that Mike has now apparently been deleting comments that were negative about Techcrunch, and has closed the comments form makes me seriously wonder whether it's a blog/news source I want to spend time with any more...

Laurent · 1 year ago

Great Sarah !

Chris Thilk · 1 year ago

I'd love to try to explain it to you but I really can't.

While I do agree that personal blogs are personal blogs and should not be held as corporate positioning in any sense, I do think there's a point here about the connection between employee and employer, though it's not the one Arrington is making.

While this gentleman was not (in all likelihood) acting as a Microsoft representative, the fact that a person is publicly associated with a company, whatever it is, should factor to some extent in how they comport themselves online. Commenting on a post is the equivalent of getting into a conversation with someone at a restaurant while wearing a shirt that makes it clear who they work for. While they are not expressing a party line they need to be aware that their actions, in this situation, do have an impact on their employer's reputation and they need to be careful in what they do.

I'm not saying Arrington is right for throwing a little tantrum there, nor is Scoble, who's always ready to align himself with Mike because, as he consistently refrains, TC was one of the first blogs to link to him. But there is something to be said for making sure you're behaving in a manner that your employer would approve of and not doing anything that would cause their reputation to be damaged.

Bob Caswell · 1 year ago

Throughout the comments, Arrington seems to justify his post by referring back to the Wikipedia fiasco he faced earlier with said MS employee. I think that's where his point might have a chance of being valid.

As for the current situation though (leaving aside the separate first situation), I'm still trying to see how the discussion ties back to Microsoft. I mean, there's no discussion of a Microsoft product or strategic move, etc. It may not be about quilting (to change Scoble's mind), but it may as well be for as little as it has to do with MS. It's just some guy's opinion on a blog's tone during these economic conditions.

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