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I’m an ardent supporter of free speech; I always have been, and I always will be. I am not a lawyer, nor do I play one on TV, but I understand the concept of free speech — and what’s important about it.

On the Internet, there are about 8 million weblogs covering just about 8 million topics; about 25% of the Internet-connected public read these weblogs. The topics covered range from kittens to basketweaving to (now fired) airline stewardesses to (now fired) US Congressional secretarial sluts: nothing’s taboo in the blogosphere.

But “nothing’s taboo in the blogoshpere” doesn’t mean that there are no consequences for your actions. In the US, you are free to have your own opinion, free to speak your mind, and pretty much free to do as you will — so long as it’s legal. Yes, even Recto-Cranialism is perfectly legal.

But if you work for a private firm, your words are not as free as you might think: every company has private, proprietary information — much of which would keep it alive in the marketplace — that needs to be safeguarded. Blogging such information, really, is pretty close to industrial espionage if you think about it. It’s a real good way to get canned: break the rules you’ll pay the price — your job.

Consider this: the company has vouchsafed this sensitive information (warranted it as safe) with you; break that confidence with your blog and you’re gone. Period. Not only have you broken that warrant, you’ve compromised your own integrity by doing so, both in the company’s eyes — and your readers’.

In fact, even the courts have agreed that free speech does not extend to the worker in the workplace — or about the workplace. You can’t just write about this stuff and expect to hide behind the guise of free speech and get away with it. Common Sense should tell you that.

Now, I’ve heard the preposterous argument that if you work for the US Government that you have the protected right to free speech. Find me one soldier or CIA agent that proves this point. Find me the one person whose very life depends on absolute secrecy and tell me that anyone in his/her governmental office (department, division, etc.) has a protected right to free speech about the sensitive goings-on in their line of work.

They don’t.

Remember “Loose Lips Sink Ships“? (For those of you who don’t recall this one, during WWII the US Government propaganda machine rolled out this slogan, along with at least two dozen others, in order to protect our soldiers fighting for each and every right enjoyed by our citizenry today, with the idea that if we all minded our own business, we’d fare a lot better. We did.)

I’m not saying that the notion of free speech is a myth; it isn’t. The idea of free speech, historically, is that you are free to read whatever publications you choose to read, obtain information from whatever sources that you wish to cull, form your own opinions and ideas and discuss them with your peers without fear of repercussions from the government. Further, the concept provided that the government could not censor any information printed in newspapers and periodicals, nor could they shut down newspapers or periodicals for merely printing an opposing political view.

At the time when this issue became part of our culture, we were ruled by the King of England, not the US Government. Private firms are not the US Government, and they never were. Hopefully, they never will be.

Further, free speech was not the main impetus behind the American Revolution. Neither was freedom of religion, another hot issue of the time. Freedom from taxation without representation was the key, mobilizing issue; the other two issues were more related to the oppression of the King of England at the time and merely added fuel to the fire; you can thank Thomas Jefferson and James Madison for the addition of the speech and religion issues to the US Constitution — some 13 years after the Revolution.

Moreover, that First Amendment states:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

The emphasis above is mine, as it is Congress that is restrained from abridging the freedom of speech; this amendment says absolutely nothing about a private business curtailing its employees’ freedom of speech as a condition of employment!

Think about this the next time you read about a blogger complaining that an employer trampled their First Amendment rights: what specifically was written (or shown) that would cause harm to the company’s reputation, either by revealing corporate secrets or by acting in a non-professional manner — and if you were the employer, would you be inclined to seek redress — especially if that individual was thought of as a de facto representative of your company because of the particular forum in which he/she participated?

Moreover, just as an individual has the right to free speech, so do corporations. And just as an individual has the right to be protected from damage caused by the exercise of free speech of others, so do corporations. In reality, there is a balance between the two.

Those bloggers fired for blogging about private workplace issues weren’t the first people fired for communicating sensitive corporate issues outside the companies for which they worked.

They were just the first fired for doing it in a new, more powerful medium.

Man, has this been a busy week, and it’s only half-over!

On Monday, I had an excellent job interview with an agency in town. The interview went so well, in fact (and I was so impressed by the firm), that I received a truly nice job offer.

Of course, I accepted.

My bride and I are elated.

When I can publicly divulge the information, I shall, but not until then. Suffice it to say that I am entering a full-time web development job for a high-powered firm right here in Cleveland, both parties are excited, and that’s that.

I am not subjugating my writing to my new job; rather, I am respecting it: I have, however, signed a confidentiality agreement and I want to clarify my areas of comment before I run even the slightest risk of violating the agreement. Therefore, the best policy is to keep mum on the subject and release it when I am crystal clear on what’s what.

This evening I attended the Cleveland Weblogger Meetup. We were joined by the local Podcasters, and both groups, combined with guests, looked to be close to 50 souls (UPDATE: in the photo posted at Brewed Fresh Daily, I count 31; George took the photo, which makes 32 — still a nice turnout). We were forced to meet upstairs (we met at the Rock Bottom Brewery in the Flats). George Nemeth should post has posted the photos on BFD soon…

Denise Polverine from cleveland.com attended, and even bought a few pitchers of beer, which I think may have loosened the conversation somewhat. I know I was a little vocal about cleveland.com’s design and the difficulty of using the site, but I also presented an alternative angle or two on how she could integrate more blogger content into cleveland.com.

One thing is for certain: Denise has a great idea — although one that might be like herding cats — and she may have to think “outside the box” to get it accomplished. It is an idea that can help “unite” a group of mavericks to write for the greater good of Greater Cleveland, which would be a Good Thing (my apologies to Martha Stewart).

Not that we need to unite the local bloggers, as I think the local bloggers wouldn’t — and shouldn’t — subjugate their material for her sake, but we could use a common clearinghouse for ideas and issues, as well as a site where all of us can be listed and have input. A sort of “Best of the Web,” like the New York Times column… and… the more I think about it… sort of like gothamist.com, which was one of my suggestions (for cleveland.com to link up with the gothamist.com network for their guidelines). This might be the best method of getting cleveland.com linked into the rest of our sites to help create some extra content.

Of course, then, there’s the old issue of “what’s in it for me?” from the bloggers. My suggestion to that was with a clearinghouse of local bloggers, she chould consider it a daily palette of freelance submissions from which she could choose to add content to cleveland.com and renumerate on a case-by-case basis. A blogger could write a post and then Denise could offer payment to include that post on cleveland.com; else, she could quote the post and cite it in the proper way if the blogger declined; else, if she deemed the post as unusable, she could do nothing. Seems fair to me.

So ends my thoughts on tonight’s (well, okay, last night’s) meetup.

The rest of my week looks like this: my last three night shifts Thursday, Friday and Saturday; Sunday, Monday and Tuesday off, with my free time spent on my kitchen floor; Tuesday evening my Digital Imaging (Photoshop) class resumes; and Wednesday, to quote Dick Vitale, is “New Job City, Baybeee!!”

Woo-Hoo!!

As Mark Twain once said, “the rumors of my demise are quite exaggerated.” Truth be told, I have been quite busy of late:

My tile arrived the other day, so I have been working my fingers to the bone on my kitchen floor, getting it ready for the fateful day. One nice result: the tile photos from Daltile were over-Photoshopped, making the Fargo Gray tile look as if the tile contained far more red than I had anticipated, and only on some tiles; the tiles that arrived were grayer and lighter than I expected, which is a blessing.

I worried, originally, that the tile would be too dark and too red, and wreck the vision I had for the kitchen. As it turns out, there is a hint of red, which matches the cherry cabinets, a hint of light blue to match the walls, and a large hint of white to match the wall tile and trim moldings.

In other words: it will turn out better than I anticipated, and my color palette will stay intact. I’ll post a photo when all is done.

The floor contained one more surprise: evidently, the former owner (the Recto-Cranial Invert) turned the heat down a bit too low during a winter vacation. The obvious result happened (frozen and burst pipes), which explains the funny plaster jobs and water marks on certain wood structures around the baths and kitchen.

All well and good: I replaced a rotted part of the kitchen floor myself; I used my trusty 3-in-1 Black & Decker Drill/Router/Circular Saw to cut the section of floor out and trim down the replacement plywood to fit. Sometimes, I amaze myself with my ability to learn to tackle new challenges in new tasks — with good results.

My floor is now as good as new; I am ready to lay the HardiBacker underlayment and start laying tile. Hoorah!

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One advantage to working third shift during home renovations is that I can’t work on the renovations all night long; my bride sleeps at night, so I still have time to pay attention to the Web…

My cousin John in Michigan emailed me another gem this week. I haven’t shown this to my bride yet, as she has been on vacation for the last couple of days; I’m waiting for her to go back to work so she can pass this one around the news room and layout desk. On nights that I am off work, we watch Aaron Brown on CNN for this very feature.

I’m not sure where I found this, but in the wake of mainstream media’s recent exploration (and some bashing) of blogging, I found this article to be refreshing and informative. I have similar rules for this site, as well, even though my writing is a little more op-ed oriented than breaking-news-oriented.

On the web design front, Eyetools Research recently posted an eyetracking analysis of a couple of designs on CSS Zen Garden, with eye-popping results. They are also offering a poll to select another of the 160-some designs listed at that site for eye tracking analysis. Makes me wonder if I made the proper decisions during my latest redesign…

Lastly, one of my tasks for Tuesday is to write individual thank-you notes to a group of folks at a local company I cannot name yet who met with me for over two hours yesterday. I left the meeting energized, excited, enthused, intrigued and definitely interested. I’ll keep you posted on the results…

Via Brewed Fresh Daily:

Duncan Riley, the editor/publisher of the Australian The Blog Herald, reports that blogging is good for you.

Gosh… I could have told you that…

The fact is that blogging *is* good for you. I feel better each and every day knowing that I have an outlet for what gurgles deep down inside, the healing potion and the venom, the cure-all and the poison.

Most writers could tell you that, too. Ask any writer his or her thoughts on becoming a better writer, and the answer is always the same: write every day. The truth is right there, no banter, no blather, no nonsense: write every day. As a blogger, you don’t have to hit the “Publish” button each and every time; save the draft, as maybe something will strike you about that post later on: perhaps an experience, or a thought straight out of the blue will coalesce your thinking in a particular draft and make the article click.

I don’t hit the “Publish” button every time I write. I can’t. Well, I could, but then you probably wouldn’t want to read me very often; you’d probably think me a Recto-Cranial Invert. Self-editing is a skill that I still need to master, but I’m learning; if I have something to say, and it’s relevant, I’ll say it. If it’s pertinent, and I can validate my arguments and structure, then I’ll hit the “Publish” button.

Sometimes, I’ll go through an entire draft, edit for about twice as long as it took to write the piece, then decide that it’s trash and dump the entire work. To me, that’s still writing. It’s advanced editing, too: knowing in your heart of hearts that something will simply not travel well is an art in itself.

Did I waste my time? Absolutely not: writing develops critical thinking and logical order. Writing well insists your thoughts to be well organized and logically arranged in order for your points to communicate. Well-developed thoughts create well-developed, critical thinking, an essential for good decisions in the business world.

There is one more thing about blogging (and writing) for me: after a while, writing becomes a habit. A serious habit. In my case, it’s something I started many years ago, and it’s more addictive for me than smoking: you can take away my cigarettes (which my wife will — soon), but I’ll be danged if I’ll let you take away my word processor (and my word processor of choice is WordPress and my DSL internet connection).

Further, there is something about writing that validates me, as if writing something makes things real, makes them a part of me, and makes me able to put an issue down and move on to the next of life’s tests. I’m more complete, more confident — and more relaxed.

A more relaxed me helps keep my blood pressure down. Lower blood pressure means a lower risk of heart attack or stroke. The lower risk of heart attack or stroke means more days to stay alive and write. See where I’m going with this? It’s a vicious circle, only a healthy one (I *knew* I’d find one of these, one day!!).

<facetiousness>Further, a more relaxed me means I smoke less and drink fewer beers, which also means lower blood pressure, lower risk of heart attack or stroke, AND the fewer beers I drink means the less I weigh (another benefit). It also means I can drink higher-quality beers and have more money in my pocket, which makes me even more relaxed.</facetiousness>

Beyond this, a more relaxed me makes my life a whole lot easier: it eases my currently difficult professional situation, it allows me to address challenges with greater detachment (a quality I greatly admired in my Uncle Jack — which his brother, my father, didn’t have, oddly enough), and it helps me see the larger realm when my loving bride and I aren’t seeing things exactly eye-to-eye (which, thankfully, doesn’t happen all that often). It helps me make better decisions, which keeps me out of a world of hurt, and that helps me be even more relaxed…

Whew! With all of this relaxation going on, you’d think I’d be a little more laid-back, don’t you? Well… keeping tension going in my life is also one of my talents, which… well… is best kept for another post, which… well… I’ve been working on…