A reporter called yesterday to ask a few questions about blogging and the workplace. How do you mix the two? Where can and should the employer draw the line between the company and the public? We talked for a while about all of the issues that employers and employees are facing with the sort of personal publishing that weblogs make possible. Then I read Scripting News this morning, and I realized that, once again, Dave Winer was way ahead. By going into academics, he nailed the area where personal publishing could really take off, right now and without limits. Students aren't constrained in what they can say. The same is true with faculty (well, tenured faculty anyway).

Having been in a law firm environment for the last 15 years, this is the way new technology always makes its way into the stodgier enterprises. Students become accustomed to certain technologies in school and then create the demand for them when they enter the workplace. And by the time that happens for weblogs - five years from now? - employers will have figured out some of the policies for blogging in the workplace.