Blogging ethics and this blog

I wanted to talk about it since few weeks, but somehow I felt I am not educated enough on the subject of blogging ethics. I read all the main books (Manifesto, Scoble, etc) and followed all the ethical and unethical issues coming up online to be able to express my own opinion. As some of you well know I work in WOM Marketing and my position is very much connected to marketing ethics (enough if you do a proper Google search) so I really need to separate my private life from the professional aspects of it. Nevertheless, I blog since 2004 and was always interested in social media to a certain extent, so it’s difficult to find the balance between work and private interest. I actually think it’s great to be able to work in a place where you can use your interest and enhance both your performance, as well as your own knowledge. As TechWag is putting it well, my blogging is about ambition and ‘talks about the things that are important to him (me:)), without advertising, and without an obvious money motive’. Even though some of the topics might correlate with my work, I always make it clear that it’s my private place. So…Today I was contacted by a very friendly blogger to take part in a project which – based on the first short (via Twitter) description sounded interesting. I like taking parts in different projects, especially when we talk about creativity, activism or social media. I cannot and I do not feel comfortable about taking part in projects involving any material reward and/or sponsored campaigns. I am glad that the approach taken today was personal, friendly and understanding and I am happy that I can use it as an excuse to make this statement.So yes, feel free to contact me, but be prepared I might have to say ‘no’ to keep my presence the way I want it to be:)

Blogging ethics is a complicated issue. Each of us has different incentives for blogging and we have different standards too. The gurus of web tried to put together different codes of conduct and we all learn and try to stay flexible with all the new technologies coming up. Our perception of privacy changes too. I personally think that the blogging ethics has, is and will always stay in the region of common understanding and respect, and will be based on a personal agreement.
I also hope we will all stay open for new ideas, and choose the ones we actually find suitable for ourselves.

Talking of new ideas…

I am looking forward to seeing new publication on this topic, book titled ‘One Nation Under Blog’ described by Jason Falls here. I keep the track of political blogging in the US and I hope we will all come out of it with few learnings. I wonder what this book will suggest…