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This is part of the the book BLOGTASTIC! Growing and Making a Difference Through Blogging. You can read the table of contents and follow the book on this page:
See the table of contents for the book here: BLOGTASTIC project
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BLOGTASTIC: Watch what you say outside the blog
Your blog is only a part of your life. You don’t want the blog to dictate what you do in the rest of your life. However, what you do offline has a direct bearing (almost all the time) on the way you are perceived via your blog. If you are a total jerk offline but appear to be sophisticated on the blog, then chances are that your true colors will come out at some point. Your offline words and actions will follow you onto the blog.
Since your blog increases the transparency of your life to the external world, the safest strategy is to keep your offline life in order. There are no other tricks that I can offer—except to live your life to the personal and ethical standards that you want others to perceive you.
The world is more connected than ever before. Let me offer a personal example. The conversations I have on the sidelines after a speaking engagement (public or private) have a tendency to travel on e-mail far and wide. People even post them in their own blogs. Sometimes I wonder whether these conversations were for public consumption. Maybe yes, maybe no. Whether I plan it or not, these private conversations sometimes become part of the online conversation.
This example is about an email sent by Angelo Mozilo, then CEO of Countrywide Financial. Angelo replied to a hardship letter from a customer (Dan Bailey) this way:
“This is unbelievable. Most of these letters now have the same wording. Obviously they are being counseled by some other person or by the internet. Disgusting.”
Dan had sent the email using “text” from a help forum called “LoanSafe.Org” to about 20 email addresses in Countrywide Financial and Angelo was one of the recipients. Rather than hitting the “Forward” button, Angelo hit “Reply” and sent the above reply back to Dan.
Dan posted Angelo’s response back at LoanSafe.Org and then all hell broke loose.
Here’s my advice. You have to take care of all your conversations. There are so many contact points out there.
- E-mails you write;
- Newsgroups you participate in;
- Your speaking engagements;
- Your conversations on the sidelines;
- Networking organizations that you belong to;
- What you say in the social networks; and
- Your chat sessions (even if it is in the context of a game).
If that looks like a lot of work, you’re right. It’s hard to manage all of these conversations. However, there is a shortcut. Be a nice person, both on and off the blog.
Blogging Tip: Being nice on and off the blog can help you big time.
Competent people who are nice have a much better chance of winning in life—when compared to people who are just competent.
Rajesh Setty is an entrepreneur, author and speaker based in Silicon Valley. He maintains another blog called Life Beyond Code and tweets as @UpbeatNow
