Thursday, January 08, 2009

dealing with negative comments in blogs

How do you respond gracefully, factually and transparently to negative blogging without looking like you're overreacting, missing the point or being hopelessly heavy handed? Relying on your natural poise, grace and politeness isn't going to cut it in a formal situation (e.g. if someone's saying rude, inflammatory or inaccurate things about your service), and it certainly won't help in a situation where someone's being deliberately provocative. Like many information workers, I find inaccurate reporting, or personal prejudice being passed off as fact quite irritating. On occasion, in fact, it leaves me boiling with anger, hardly in the right frame of mind to put together a reasoned response.

This is where good procedures can really help, and I absolutely love this Air Force Blog Assessment Flow-chart, which steps you through the process, tells you what to consider in your response, and how to be graceful about correcting facts, take the opportunity to make positive contact, and know when to step away. Via Jeremiah and lots of other places.

... and here is the flow-chart in full. More details, including fully legible text, on the click-through!