Working from Home and Social Media

Not my office - far too little paper around for that!

I was sparked into thinking about working from home by this blog post.  Although I work from home, and have the issue of not having colleagues working alongside me at least in this church we say morning prayer together every day and have the opportunity to chat afterwards.

However, I am not going to blog on work - I have done that a reasonable amount already, but on my observations on social media.  Perhaps unsurprisingly I know a lot of vicars!  A subset blog and Twitter and Facebook and one of the things that I have noticed is that particularly blogging and Twittering (no I don't tweet) build communities and provide a a virtual neighbour for that displacement activity which is essential when that sermon just has to be written (like now!).  This is far from a scientific observation, but I am starting to wonder whether the growth in these media is in part down to the reduction in community in the workplace, providing a virtual community which will still be there when the current job isn't.

However, it can also be very addictive and at present I don't have time to tweet and don't feel the lack of community - although either of these might change!

Is this Fair?

Should employers Google you?  An article in The Guardian asks this question today.  If you are on Facebook, or blog then there is information on you out there that can be accessed readily.  If you are applying for a job (very relevant for me right now) is it fair for the interviewers to search for you on the web?

At the recent training I had from 3D Coaching this was discussed and we were told to think about the contents of our blogs.  We were also told that there is a priest out there who won't get a job because of his blog (and I noticed that one of the blogs I followed suddenly disappeared) - and one person then spent a free afternoon researching how to remove their Facebook entries entirely (they found a way that appeared to do it - I think they suspended it).

So is this fair?  The Guardian article suggests that there is no difference between this and saying things in the pub - except in the latter case there is no evidence!  Is this perhaps why some people blog pseudonymously?  Although I do wonder how possible it is to be anonymous.  In my case I think it is difficult to espouse openness if you are hiding.

During the training we were also told that we should be our real ourselves - if they see the real us and don't want that then that is a good thing to discover.  But if you are in desperate need of a job (luckily not my situation) then that ideal can perhaps be compromised.