Monthly Archives: June 2005

The Limits of Blogging

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I recently read a post at BLADAM about the possible demerits of blogging. It got me thinking about maintaining a blog with personal posts on it. For a techie, as I sometimes like to consider myself, a website is a must. Why? I’m not sure. For me it is part vanity. Before blogs came to the forefront, maintaining content on a personal website was somewhat of a problem. I had photographs on there, as that is an interest. Other things like links, and my resume were on there. My first website had just about this. None of it was really dynamic content. The most active part of my current site is the blog, even though it is not updated as frequently as I would like.

So when I do post, what do I post? Personal thoughts, eloquent philosophy, some poetry, general updates on my life, interesting quotes, some political insight make up the bulk of my posts. All in all, the content can be considered to be personal in nature, as opposed to those who use a blog to put out tech news or postings that do not relate to them personally. According to BLADAM, there are risks to putting out personal thoughts on the web. Unlike a personal journal that may be written in a book and hidden under a pillow, a website can be googled by anyone who cares to. Infact, a Google search for my name yields my old and new website as the first two results.

Assume the following scenario: I have a job interview with XYZ Corp. It is routine for them to do a background check on all employees. As a part of their research, they are told of my website. The person in HR decides to see if I’ve got anything on it that may be incriminating. On my blog, she happens to read a post that I made some years ago that has a decidedly leftist point-of-view. She doesn’t agree with me and feels that I would be a bad fit to XYZ Corp.

Feel that such a hypothetical is a bit over the top? It happened to BLADAM and I don’t doubt that it may happen to me. So does that mean the end of my blogging career? Hardly! I’d rather work a place that encourages open thought and a mix of people.

There are other points to consider, however. The first is what should corporations do to disallow their employees from blogging about the company? There have been instances covered in the news media about the dangers of blogging. The most famous, being the recent Apple case. Corporations need to develop comprehensive policies and educate employees about the benefits and dangers of blogging.

The second point that I feel is of importance is a blog coming back to haunt a person. Google, the company whose mission it is to archive everything, most certainly will have archived my website on their massive servers. I don’t make it hidden that it is my aspiration to be a big time CEO or a big time politician or a big time something. So what if I’m running for the office of Something Big and something I wrote many, many years ago comes back to haunt me? After watching the recent fiasco of the 2004 US Presidential elections where documents were “uncovered” about the candidates and became such a big issue, I don’t see why an electronic blog post would not come back to haunt a person.

Despite all these fears, I think that I’m going to continue blogging. I will have to wait and watch to see what comes of it.

:-D

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A Friend: “Krishna can be accused of many things, but he can’t be accused of being cheap”

😀

Thunderstorm

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Finally its June. The weather seems to have made up its mind to stay warm. However, the Philly summer usually means extensive rain. Last night was incredible. Around 7:30 PM, as I walked back home from a final, the overcast sky lit up for a few seconds. Thunder rumbled soon after. Uh-oh, I thought to myself and picked up the pace. I stopped briefly at the 7/11, and unfailingly was asked by the guy outside to spare some change. I didn’t. As I entered the gates of The Courts, a drop of rain about the size of a compact-disc fell on me. I scampered into my apartment, and settled in front of the computer. Even though I faced away from the window, the next surge of lightening was enough to completely light up my monitor. A warning jumped up on my screen, “You are not running on the battery back-up.” “Great”, I thought to myself, “just what a need – a power outage when I have an exam in twelve hours.” But it must have just been a surge, as none of the lights were affected. In a few minutes the trees were bent sideways, and the rain was falling horizontally. Kelly exclaimed that it was like a mini-tsunami outside. I wouldn’t have disagreed. I peeked out the window of my third floor apartment, and could actually see the rain that had fallen on the street being blown sideways. Ten minutes later, it was all over.

Now, I just hope that my Business Law final doesn’t hit with the same intensity as that storm. It is one of the few classes that I’ve really detested at Drexel. I’m very ill prepared for it. I’ve got 2 hours to go.