Thanks to Antony Mayfield for noting the BBC’s story about blogging policemen. Antony’s absolutely right about the public sector playing by (unjustifiably?) different rules when it comes to internal ‘dissent’ – and equally, he makes a very fair point about this possibly being symptomatic of wider problems.
These days, if there isn’t an official channel to let you express your thoughts, there are plenty of unofficial options. It’s perfectly valid to remind your employees to be sensible – as Microsoft does, for example. But you have to show trust towards your people – in how they do their day job, and in how they discuss it afterwards. Policing is all about relationships, at the end of the day.