Policies Compared: Today's Corporate Blogging Rules

On four points, all of the eight most well-known corporate blogging policies agree -- corporate bloggers are personally responsible and they should abide by existing rules, keep secrets and be nice. Those four principles are the core of today's corporate blogging rules. I've compared and categorized the corporate blogging policies and guidelines of Corporate Blogging Policies, the post I update when I find new policies. You'll also find some more related links there.
Why a comparison? I figured it would be valuable for many other organizations to get an overview of these early policies. Maybe see the patterns. And it is interesting to find what all of them consider important -- and perhaps even more interesting are some of the more unusual pieces of advice/rules.

• The Common; approximately half of them
  
  - Add value
  - Respect copyright
  - Follow the law
  - Cite and link
  - Discuss with your manager
We can also add corporate blogging, they all aim for the part of it that's IBM: Blogs, wikis and other forms of online discourse are individual interactions, not corporate communications. IBMers are personally responsible for their posts. In line with this, 5 of 8 recommend (or demand that) bloggers include a disclaimer. 2 of 8 mention a disclaimer as an option. 1, Yahoo!, doesn't talk about a disclaimer at all. Abide by existing rules (8/8)
All policies refer, more or less, to present corporate policies. They form a basis for the blogging rules. Yahoo! remind of a Proprietary Information Agreement and IBM of its Business Conduct Guidelines. Example, Keep secrets (8/8)
Not much to say about this one. It's got to be there. Example, Example, Add value (5/8)
A category more from the guidelines than the policy parts. Bloggers are recommended to be relevant, to write about what they know. Example, Follow the law (5/8)
There are examples of policies saying this in general, but legal aspects are primarily discussed from a financial perspective. Example, Respect copyright (4/8)
There are actually two sub-categories of this. In some cases bloggers are reminded about copyright in general. In other cases the company specifically points out that also the company's own material is protected. Example, Cite and link (3/8)
I'm surprised this one isn't more common considering how basic linking is for blogging. If we tell employees they should be interesting and not insult anyone -- which could be critized for being too obvious -- why not stress this important part of blogging more? Example, Discuss with your manager (3/8)
A piece of very practical advice. Bloggers should discuss with their managers if they in any way are uncertain about what they're going to write. Example, You can write on company time (2/8)
Plaxo together with Thomas Nelson. And it's a good idea. A policy should, I think, make it clear if blogging is allowed on the job -- after all, we're talking about blogging about the job. Example, You may disagree with the boss (1/8)
This I would like to see in more corporate blogging policies! It's not half as obvious as many of the other things these policies tell the bloggers. But it could be one of the more important to make words like "openness" credible. Example, Stop blogging if we say so (1/8)
Maybe this goes without saying, but only one policy states that employees are to stop blogging about company matters if they're told so. Example, Contact PR (1/8)
Many bloggers can testify to the fact that a good blog attracts media attention. What if that happens to an employee blog? Only Yahoo! discusses the situation. Example, Reader Comments... Fredrik Wacka is the author and founder of the popular CorporateBlogging.Info