The Personal is Professional

When a blogger you read for professional purposes shares personal information on his or her site, do you find that appealing or does it make you uncomfortable?

I think there are some boundaries we should respect (which is why I maintain a separate site for posts to friends and family), but I also think its important to allow our personal and professional selves to overlap (which is why I link to that site from this one.)

Amy Gahran is running a 10-question survey on this very topic, and it takes just a few minutes.  No matter how you feel about this, I encourage you to share your thoughts with her--she'll be publishing the results soon.

Hat tip to Tris Hussey at Business Blog Consulting.

Comments

[Amy Gahran]

Thanks so much for recommending my survey, Ed. What do you think of the response info I've published so far? I'm finding it fascinating, wish I had enough time today to get it all out there!

- Amy Gahran
Editor, CONTENTIOUS

[Tris Hussey]

Thanks very much Ed ... I know Amy has updated the results again this morning. I haven't had a look, but she told me that they are getting really interesting!

Tris

[Beth]

I think you came up with a great way to seperate your personal/professional. I sort of try to save the personal stuff for my Cambodia blog, but occassionally a kid's drawing will slip in. I sort of view a blog as more informal communication - like personal networking at a conference -- you might try to keep the conversation going by finding some mutual outside interests. It makes your more human. Or, if someone came into my office, they would certainly see my kid's artwork on the wall ...

However, I wouldn't share deeply personal details consistently on my professional blog or write inappropriate posts (or at least have I tried not too.)