In the last couple of days, i broke one of this blog’s cornerstone rules. I posted material which identified a specific organization in a negative light. When the victim pointed out this mistake to me yesterday afternoon, I took the one immediate measure I could apply to correct the situation — I deleted (without hesitation) the offending posts.
Then I thought about what I had done wrong, and why.
I realized, in hindsight, that I had succumbed to emotion, allowing my instinctive disappointment and anger with some draft contract documentation to get the best of me. Rather than deal with the situation properly, by simply phoning the organization’s representative to gain an insight into the nature and reason for their terms, I posted portions of the documentation publicly, inviting reader feedback. Several readers responded and the aggregate responses painted a bleak picture for the organization.
This caused potential damage far greater than my initial “crime” — my allowing my emotions to get the best of me. Because this blog has earned relatively high search engine rankings, anything I post here can influence the perceptions people have of others, especially if the opinions are negative. Virtually instantly, the negative interpretations here can flash to the top of the search engine rankings when someone searches the other organization’s name.
This ability to impact the search results of others of course is a great power. It is simply wrong to use this capacity for anything negative especially when I am writing about a new organization which hasn’t yet earned its own search engine rankings. My mistakes are magnified because I failed to check and communicate with the other business and allow their representatives to explain their side of the story. (As a rule, I prefer to use the phone rather than email when I sense a problem in a relationship: Errors and misunderstandings are easy to magnify when you don’t have the ability to listen beneath the surface and have immediate two-way communication.)
I don’t want to overstate my errors here. In reviewing my notes and actions, I’m confident I didn’t step over the legal line to libel: That is publishing falsehoods casting a damaging negative light on individuals or organizations. My facts were accurate and I didn’t go around any formal confidentiality agreements or rules (though I recognize the other organization rightfully may have implicitly expected confidentiality.)
Nevertheless, I broke my own rules and failed to live up to the values which are at the foundations of this blog. I’m sorry.
To err is human, to forgive is divine, so forgive yourself and be divine. I have a blog also and have come to understand the responsibility it brings, but I still get my Ya Ya’s out, and then I forgive myself.
Paul, thanks for these observations.
Thankfully, in blogging for the past four years, I’ve only really screwed up a two or three times. In part, this is because I’ve developed some consistent policies and rules, which I will share in an upcoming posting. (About to leave for three days at a cottage without Internet access — which means, to maintain continuity, I will need to create three blog entries in advance.)