Ian Landsman is Starting From Scratch, July 10, 2005:
Professional Decorum
If you're in the market for a powerful and user friendly Help Desk solution, please take a look at my company's flagship product HelpSpot.OK I was going to let the HelpSpot preview be the top post on the blog over the weekend, but I just have to comment on this. Scoble points to a Chronicle of Higher Ed article about how profs who applied for jobs were not hired because of their blogs. I have a feeling he didn't read the entire article. Here's why.
Having worked in and around higher ed for the last 6 years I understand perfectly that 90% of people who work in the industry have no idea what's going on in society right now (or for the past 10 years for that matter). Scoble, apparently having only skimmed the articles comes to the conclusion that the blogs helped them make the right decision about not hiring. However, a closer read shows their true colors. Take this gem of a quote:
" Worst of all, for professional academics, it's a publishing medium with no vetting process, no review board, and no editor. The author is the sole judge of what constitutes publishable material, and the medium allows for instantaneous distribution."
Um maybe it's just me but isn't that the beauty of blogs? Isn't that what makes them so powerful? That there isn't a committee that goes over every word of my post figuring out what is "proper" and what is "correct"?
More good stuff:
" We've all done it -- expressed that way-out-there opinion in a lecture we're giving, in cocktail party conversation, or in an e-mail message to a friend. There is a slight risk that the opinion might find its way to the wrong person's attention and embarrass us. Words said and e-mail messages sent cannot be retracted, but usually have a limited range. When placed on prominent display in a blog, however, all bets are off."
This really shows their true colors and why higher ed is in so much trouble. Rather than know what someone is actually like they much rather everyone stick to the party line so that no opinions find there way out into the public.
OK a bit more:
" But the site quickly revealed that the true passion of said blogger's life was not academe at all, but the minutiae of software systems, server hardware, and other tech exotica. It's one thing to be proficient in Microsoft Office applications or HTML, but we can't afford to have our new hire ditching us to hang out in computer science after a few weeks on the job."
So what you're saying is that passion isn't an attribute that you look for in profs? Anything more than knowledge of Office scares you? You're of course also drawing the conclusion that because this person publishes on their blog about technology that they don't know about anything else and that they'll be running off to the CS department after 1 day on the job.
OK, please start banging your heads against your desk right now before you start reading this next paragraph. Yes you're sending your children to be WITH these people and it's costing you $100K to do it!
" The content of the blog may be less worrisome than the fact of the blog itself. Several committee members expressed concern that a blogger who joined our staff might air departmental dirty laundry (real or imagined) on the cyber clothesline for the world to see. Past good behavior is no guarantee against future lapses of professional decorum."
Is this the bloggers/profs problems or yours? If your department has so much dirty laundry in it that you're worried about the new hires blog then your problems are alot bigger than a blog my friend.
" More often that not, however, the blog was a negative, and job seekers need to eliminate as many negatives as possible."
Well when you're worried about covering your own ass more than if the person is qualified I could see how it's a negative.
Obviously I could go on and on. Mostly it just makes me sad as I know alot of folks at my previous job who could have easily written this article. So Scoble, do you really think this is a positive? Do you really think they got it? I don't. I think they were intimidated by someone willing to express their opinions without editors and committees. I think they don't want a "loose cannon" running around. I think they want to hold on to the status quo as long as they can.
I don't know if the people who applied were qualified, but I can tell you that the people who interviewed them weren't. Not to teach our children in todays society.
Discussion
Yeah, I thought about taking that tack on this, but you did it a lot better.
Created by Robert Scoble on 07.10.2005 3:07 am
Thanks 
Created by Ian on 07.10.2005 3:07 am
Great article, Ian.
I do wholeheartedly agree with this article, and from what I've seen many higher-ed departments are filled to overflowing with politics and conservatism which really have no place among people who are supposed to be the thought leaders in their fields.
That said, I will also comment that I have seen blogs that would turn me off of someone as a potential employee. My guess, however, is that the same elements on the blog that soured me on that person would likely have come out during an interview as well. But, you never know.
Many blogs, including my own, cover a range of topics from ones related to my field and ones that are more personal. If I was hiring someone today, and I found that they had a blog, I would certainly read it. The "personal" items such as political views and family stories, might give me some insight into the person, but I would generally not consider those. The field-related items are more interesting: they can give an idea about how someone communicates in their work, how they go about solving problems, what kinds of problems they run into, etc.
While I think everyone is absolutely free to write whatever they wish on their blog, it *is* a part of their public persona and might be used in a hiring process.
So, getting back on topic, it seems like you and Scoble might both be right. This is a very poor reflection on the state of higher ed and the ability of this group of people to make a successful hire. It's a positive, though, because the job hunter probably wouldn't have been happy there 
Created by Kevin Dangoor on 07.10.2005 3:07 am
I feel obliged to defend the author a little bit. Not that the system isn't screwy, but you should realize:
1) all of these candidates are qualified for the job. This job probably started out with 60-100 applications, so anyone who gets to the top 10 is definitely qualified.
2) these 10 candidates have probably been through a 20-60 minute quick interview and a full day of speaking and meeting people, giving a teaching demonstration, etc, so again, anyone who makes it past that cut is qualified
3) deciding among the 5 people left, all of whom are qualified, comes down to random and contingent aspects that include a large element of "do I want to hang out with this person for the next 20-30 years?"
This article shows human nature at work. Don't try to convince yourself that it's limited to professors.
Created by Anon on 07.10.2005 3:07 am
I agree that blogs can and should be used in hiring decision, especially when the prospective employee presents his or her blog in their resume. However, I think it's pretty clear from this article that it wasn't so much the content of the blogs they were worried about as much as the fact that the person has one. It's really remarkable, because in many ways it reflects how anti-technology many schools are. Even though technology is at the core of modern society, many in higher ed don't want to believe that's the case. They don't understand it so they fear it.
Anon I definitely know it's not limited to professors. I guess it's just that you expect more acceptance of new ideas in a higher ed environment and this article reflects the lack of acceptance in that industry just as I personally experienced that lack of acceptance at my previous job. Out of hundreds of professors I worked with there were very few who took a real interest in learning new things. I feel that it's changing a bit, but it's a long slow process in higher ed, because as you said most people work there for life.
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Created by Ian on 07.10.2005 3:07 am