rotten bananas

This whole Google/Sicko fiasco is a little embarrassing. Now, I’m no supporter of Michael Moore. Personally, I find him obnoxious and I think he does more to make similar-minded people look sneaky and untrustworthy than he actually does to educate. I also think that Google is an awesome company. They’re incredibly forward thinking and quick to embrace modern business practices. This is how they were opened up to this mess.

Google has employees blogging on a number of different topics. This is great. It offers a level of transparency that doesn’t exist in most companies. It makes Google easy to trust. Google also prides itself in hiring the best people. Generally these people are probably very intelligent. One risk that will always exist with choosing human power over computer is predictability. Well, the lack thereof. This can manifest in a poorly thought out blog post.

The idea is not bad. It’s a good way to teach customers how to use Google’s products. And the issue is not the content, or ideas exposed, but the medium. A corporate blog is not a place to discuss opinions. This particular instance wasn’t catastrophic, but it could have been.

I’m not saying fire the woman. I’m not even saying punish her. Just remember to be very careful who is allowed to portray the face of your company. People are prone to making mistakes, and there are plenty of legitimate reasons for screwing up. Let’s try to avoid the stupid ones.