Understand your points on blogging from a corporate domain, but there's more to it than that, as we dug into that issue.

Not all EMC employees who blog want to be closely affiliated with the EMC domain. They value their independence, and — should they leave EMC — would want to take their blog with them. As a corporation, we have to respect that.

Conversely, from a corporate perspective, it's also the case that we don't necessarily want all employees who blog to be closely affiliated with EMC's brand. Some people get into topic that aren't really aligned with EMC's business, for example. We have to respect that as well.

So, we've chosen a middle ground: (a) visible disclosure on your blog if you're going to discuss EMC-related topics, and (b) a “corporate roster” page for blogs that we feel reflect the best of EMC.

Now, I'm not saying there's a right or wrong way to handle these issues — that's simply the way we've tried to steer a middle ground that serves multiple agendas.

So far, so good.

– Chuck

I particularly like that you blog from an EMC.com domain! As you'll see, today's post suggests that this is the best place to put a corporate blog. I wish all EMC blogs were similarly situated, and I would like to hear more about the corporate blogging policy. Perhaps someone can rise to that challenge?

And yes, of course, we are all biased. And we are all vendors (as I'll be pointing out on Thursday!)

Re: hiring, I haven't set out to “hire all independent bloggers”. What I am trying to do is hire great people, and often the skills that make a great technical blogger (passionate, can communicate, can build a community, technophile) all are great “leading indicators” of being a great person for my team.

If they continue to blog – GREAT. If they remain as independent as they can on their blog – EVEN BETTER. It's much more difficult to stay as independent as you can when you're not with a particular vendor, not because people are forcing you one way or another, but you live in a world with constant inputs with a certain bias.

You're quite right that we all have our biases — it's who we are, and it's hard to ignore, deny or compensate from this very basic human truth.

I, for one, try to be just about as open and transparent as I can be around who I work for, my motivations, etc. Fortunately, I tend to be a big fan of many of the things my company does.

And, regarding the “trust” thing — even supposedly independent voices can lead you down the wrong path occasionally

Thanks!