This image was lost some time after publication.

PAUL BOUTIN — Your company has employee blogs, how cool is that! But as a Valley professional, you're paid a lot of money to play a specialized role. "Blogger" isn't that role. To prevent your posts from coming back to bite you, stick to the unwritten Law of the Schoolyard about when — and how often — to blog.

Plenty of companies encourage employees to blog about their work, either to outreach to the community or as informal tech support. But to co-workers who don't know you, blogging on the job still smacks of goofing off. It isn't what you post that will get you in trouble, but when you post. Look at it through the CEO's eyes: If your project is a week behind schedule, why are you weighing in at noon on the Yahoo re-org? Lunch is for working.

The unwritten rules for blogging from work are:

  • Never post during normal office hours. It's not a crime to work on your entries during the day — more productive than surfing Fark — but schedule your posts to appear in the early evening, or better yet at breakfast the next morning. You'll seem like a busy professional, not a bored staffer.
  • Don't comment on every breaking news item. Only post when you have something original to say about something related to your expertise or pet interests. Me-too posts about whatever's on CNN say trainspotter, not trendspotter.
  • Behind schedule? Stop blogging! Your manager may approve of your nonstop posts, but your manager has a manager, too — one who may push her to fire Sir Blog-A-Lot. Drop back to a weekly "the team is working hard" post.

SVUG suggests this schedule for company bloggers, so you'll neither go stale nor seem to have too much time on your hands.

  • One post per day maximum.
  • One post per week minimum.
  • Schedule posts for 7am or 7pm.
  • When in doubt, wait it out. Better to seem too busy than too bloggy.