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Robert_Johnson -at- percussion -dot- com noted:
[snip]
>
> I don't think the issues of business etiquette and the art of
> schmoozing
> customers are quite as important in an online community as
> they are in the
> executive suit. The online environment is much more
> free-wheeling. I'm
> not saying that there are no boundaries when you represent
> your company
> online; you certainly should behave professionally. But the online
> environment is much less formal, as we've seen illustrated on
> this list for years.
While it's less formal, it's more dangerous.
If you act, online, as a representative of your company, then your statements can be (are) viewed as representations of the company's policy.
If you talk about stuff that's coming, _without_ all those standard disclaimers regarding "forward looking statements", then you can be seen as committing your company to perform. You and your company could get in big trouble if you end up not performing, after somebody acted on your statements.
Most of those butt-covering statements and legalese are far longer than 140 characters, so right away you shouldn't be using Twitter.
In fact, the Product Managers and Marketing people and some trained sales and support people are just about the only ones who _should_ be representing your company on-line, because it's their job to know the commercial and political rammifications of their utterances.
Even if you don't get into regulatory or tort-ish trouble, what if some innocent statement by you causes a bunch of (potential) customers to decide to hold off purchasing your company's lucrative XYZ-DaBomb so they can get the XYZ-DaBomb2 in first-quarter next year, with all then nifty new features at almost the same price... just as another branch of your company is trying to get the sales numbers for the quarter, and another branch of your company is busy producing and stocking all the XYZ-DaBomb units that were projected to sell... until you opened your mouth/keyboard.
Or, as in the Feedback question, what if you 'clarify' the function of the product for a questionner in one market and your words basically indict your company in a different market (with a different legal regime)?
Remember that every word you utter on-line gets preserved somewhere... and Google has probably already found and archived it.... and MickeySloth has probably already massaged it to favor them (or a partner company) and is serving the altered text to their Bung! users.
- Kevin
As for me, my statements are my own. They are not endorsed by my employer.
My employer recognizes that I have as much loyalty to them as they do to me.
And they stick the following embarrassingly badly worded bumpf on the end of each of my posts.
:-)
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