June 3rd, 2005

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Blogosphere
7 Comments »

Out with eBizBlog, In with SmallBizBlog

About a year ago, I set up eBizBlog for Rob and Sheena at eBC. They wrote regularly, built up a good audience (I’ve seen the stats) and provided valuable information to business owners.

Unfortunately, for unknown but undoubtedly stupid reasons, they’ve been let go from eBC. Despite the blog being their baby, they couldn’t take it with them.

Instead, they’ve launched SmallBizBlog.ca, where they’re continuing their blogging. We whipped up a super-quick logo for them, and off they go.

It’s too early to tell, but I’m guessing that eBizBlog isn’t long for this world. The rate of posting has already slowed down, and the poor bastard they got to replace Rob and Sheena is getting (as the kids put it) p0wned.

UPDATE: Someone has apparently misconstrued my use of the phrase “poor bastard” as impugning the current (and apparently temporary) blogger on eBizBlog. It’s only (and I think the rest of the sentence clearly indicated that) a reference to amount of grief he’s suffering at the hands of the site’s commenters. Clearly the complainer has never read Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

Comments: 7 Responses so far

Sue
June 3rd, 2005
1:06 pm

I am DYING to hear about the political justifications for this one. I think Rob & Sheena have been very professional in how they let people know they’ve “moved on”. It’s definitely not making eBC look good. Of course “Skippy” is not helping as their new blogger, either. He’s probably quite qualified as a computer expert but doesn’t seem to know the first thing about e-business.

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Dean
June 3rd, 2005
2:05 pm

I don’t know Rob & Sheena, have never read anything by or about them before, and I have never used or seen eBC and its blog.

That said, I am a software developer with years of experience building and maintaining databases, and in my reasonably informed opinion what they did was wrong. You cannot ethically take information with you that was provided to your employer. Ever. Under any circumstances.

In other words, if they took any of those addresses from lists compiled at work, they acted unethically, and they may have violated their nondisclosure agreements with that employer.

In my opinion, the only people that they should have contacted were people with whom they had already established email contact from their personal accounts.

Note that this applies whether or not R+S’s termination was stupid or not. Without knowing the details, it seems likely to me that it was stupid.

We in the IT business need a professional association like those of doctors and lawyers.

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Andrea
June 3rd, 2005
5:09 pm

I agree with Dean. Moreover, this move violates PIPEDA.

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Matthew
June 4th, 2005
9:32 am

Darren’s post said specifically about the blog “they couldn’t take it with them”.

Do you in fact know they took information from their employer, or are you just puffing your chest out over a hypothtical scenario, Dean?

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Dean
June 4th, 2005
7:53 pm

That’s why I said ‘if’, Matthew.

Also, if you read the new blog, you’ll see what I’m talking about.

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Sheena
June 6th, 2005
12:03 am

First of all Dean, your opinion is not reasonably informed, because you don’t know the details of our situation. And no, I really don’t see what you’re talking about. The stuff you’re reading on our blog is simply speculation by our (also uninformed) visitors. Did we apologize to the few people who had a problem with us? Sure we did… no need to get any more knickers in a knot over this. But just because we did doesn’t mean we’re admitting any wrongdoing.

By the way, any lawyer will tell you that in BC PIPEDA expressly excludes business email addresses.

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Darren Harkness
June 6th, 2005
10:36 am

‘Bastard’ is actually entirely appropriate. I left a couple of comments on his site that were critical of his actions thus far (but not inflammatory — more along the lines of telling him he needs to divulge his background in order to gain respect for his domain knowledge), and came back to find my comments heavily edited, with entire passages removed.

I won’t be frequenting that site in the future.

(Note: while I respect a blog owner’s right to edit the content of comments on his or her site, I find it highly suspicious when the owner removes content that is not inflammatory , offending, or insulting. When an owner edits comments simply because they differ with his point of view, I take umbrage — especially in an arena that is intended to support industry communication.)

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