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With an outstanding and unique panel of British speakers, Bloggers: You’re Fired! will explore whether it is possible to combine blogging, anonymity and work – and how you can whistle-blow without getting caught.

This inimitable panel is exceptionally positioned to talk about these issues: each speaker brings a wealth of personal experience and professional expertise to this topic.

All speakers run high-traffic, popular, award-winning blogs, and, in addition, all have published a best-selling book that is based on their blog.

Petite Anglaise, a.k.a. Catherine Sanderson, was fired by her employers after they discovered her blog. She then took them to an employment tribunal – and won: her employers were forced to pay her damages.

Tom Reynolds, whose blog Random Acts of Reality covers his work as a paramedic, has been writing –with permission from his employers– for five years. His blog helped set the standard for work-based-blogging in the UK.

City Boy, a.k.a. Geraint Anderson, anonymously wrote a blog and newspaper column that whistle-blew on his Stock Exchange colleagues. He decided to divulge his real identity when his book was published.

Girl With A One-Track Mind, a.k.a. Zoe Margolis, will be moderating this talk, and brings her experience of blogging anonymity –and being forced to lose it without her consent, at the hands of the mainstream press– to the table.

The panel will look at the ethics and perils of anonymous vs. non-anonymous blogging and attempt to answer the following questions:

*Why blog anonymously?
*Whistle-blowing on work: what are the risks?
*What are the advantages of blogging under your real name?
*The consequences: what might happen when you've put everything on the record?
*How should bloggers deal with invading others' privacy in their blogs?
*Should employers be informed if you're blogging about work?
*Respecting moral boundaries vs. 'In the public interest': where should bloggers draw the line?
*What happens if (or when) you lose your blogging anonymity?
*Knowing your rights: what happens if your employers fire you for blogging?
*The future of blogging: what lessons can we learn?

This will be a fun –and heated– debate with the aim of incorporating lots of contributions and interaction from the audience.

Please note: more info about panel on above comment. Please vote for this panel, thanks!

Zoe has experienced first hand the forced transition between anonymity and the sudden asociation of her name with her actions. In a situation where many would have given up, she has stood up for her privacy rights while facing the challenge of keeping the intimate nature of her sex-blog. With her attitude she has shown the global democratic aspect of blogging, where a blog serves as a platform, not only to advocate for personal rights but also for personal ethical values. It will be interesting to see how the panel addresses and shows other faces of the fast growing influence of blogging.

Please no moralistic blather...Zoe can add humor and erotic intelligence to the panel leave the birkenstock crowd in the dustbin wher they belong! :)

I'm not 'in the industry', nor particularly geeky - I'm an ordinary Joe who works in the public sector in the UK. But I can see that the issues of privacy/online personas/continued mainstream media power to ride roughshod over individuals such as Zoe Margolis are fast creeping up on us ordinary people bloggers and non-bloggers alike. The proposed panel comprises eloquent, down-to-earth 'real' people who can speak and debate from personal experience, with honesty and humour.

I think this panel is going to raise some very interesting questions and some heated debate. With Zoe's first-hand experience of pseudononymous blogging (and subsequent outing) it'll be fascinating. I've already got some questions I want to ask: not least, how anonymous bloggers be trusted?

What a great panel topic. Well done Zoe! This is an issue close to my heart. I started an anonymous blog earlier this year so I could write freely about the affair I find myself in with a married man (insidetheaffair.blogspot.com). It's not a situation I ever thought I'd be in and I find writing about it is not only a great outlet for the frustrations, desires and issues associated with infidelity, but incredibly liberating. I have woven a complex technical web around my blogging so I can post from my home laptop, but the "ethics and perils of anonymous blogging" as Zoe puts it, occupy much of my waking moments. Being 'outed' would be a disaster for me, as it would for most anonymous bloggers. I have followed Zoe's story and been both heartbroken and indignant on her behalf. I am very much looking forward to this panel and I believe it will be a useful debate on many levels.
Bravo Zoe x

I'd love to check this panel out...I'm not sure how my employer would handle the content on my site (I work at a college and a lot of students follow and read my site) that deals with sex and dating, but I'd like to see how others have handled situations that spring up as a result of their blogging and voice. I'd really be interesting in seeing this panel.

I'm going to SXSW and would definitely check out this panel!

Dooce Redux? This seems rather dated. Why not make it about anonymous blogging and all the complications that ensue? But getting fired for blogging is old news.

@Bart Scrivner - It's not Dooce Redux. If you have a read through the 2nd comment here, where I've given further info about the debate, you'll see that only one of the panelists was fired for blogging. Of the other two, one continues to blog about his work with his employers permission, and the other anonymously whistle-blew about his profession - and then later quit his job. And I was 'outed'; so out of us four, I'd say we cover quite a few bases regarding anonymity, blogging, and how one might approach the issues and ethics of bloggers writing about their private, personal and work lives.

"Being 'outed' would be a disaster for me" (Tuesday Malone)

As it would be for his wife, your husband and any children involved...

Expressing your thoughts and feelings I can understand but on such a personal subject where there would be devastation for more than just you. And if you were to get "outed", it would be of your own making. I know that sounds incredibly harsh but you don't *have* to blog on the internet...

A very interesting and very relevant topic! Plus with both Zoe and Tom on the panel, it's bound to be interesting - I've not read the other two's blogs so I can't comment on them, but I'm sure if they're as popular then it'll be a fascinating debate. Now to just work out if I can save enough in time to attend if this makes it into the final selection!

I'm familiar with both Petite and Tom so the information should be excellent and from the masses of comments both sites get the interaction should be stimulating.

An very interesting subject that has been out of the media spotlight recently.

I have researched work blogging over the past years and would certainly be interested in this subject being raised at such a high-profile event.

Most details of my research can be found on my blog - http://workblogging.blogspot.com/

Good luck Zoe et al.

This should be a really interesting panel - it would be interesting to look at the right to reply - whistleblowing in itself is a good thing, if the charges are correct, but if someone is maliciously maligning their employer, should the employer have a right to respond, and how can that be possible if the blogger is anonymous?

All through the ages, writers of important thought had to hide behind a pseudonym [name ]or wait until death before their thoughts could be published for the Hoi poloi or gnu to read and digest. The Internet allows like minded thinkers to connect and not be alone in their thinking. The ancient ones had to be careful and pick worthy friends. It took 1500 years before Aristotle was toppled from being the only sane one, there would still be a flat earth because if Copernicus had exposed his thoughts to the world before other like minded had read and digested his thoughts his brain would have been handed to him at an earlier date. The world on the most part likes regurgitation of the repeated that has never been processed by thinking.
Now the Internet lets birds of a feather caw to-gether.
Dungbeetle

Sounds like a very interesting debate, and one I would definitely watch on podcast.

It's good that this panel is possible, raising awareness of the "freedom of speech" and how it may or may not apply to your work activities.

More Europeans will be a bonus.

We need to see Zoe in a panel at SXSW 2009 and this one sounds ideal based on her experience. This topic needs to be tackled with some humour and she's the girl to bring it (from the UK).

Should be interesting- i'll look forward to watching it online afterwards. I love both Girl's and Petite's blogs and it is unfair that they have been penalised in their work life for something that is outside of work. As far as I can see, nothing in either of their blogs affected their jobs. Good luck to all of you!

@girlonetrack great panel idea, loved the one you were part of on privacy & identity last year, one of the best panel discussions I've ever heard. @Richard Longhurst - are you going to SXSW?!

What about the first guy in the UK ever to get fired for blogging? He worked at Waterstones in Edinburgh if I recall rightly...

SXSW was awesome this year.

Great article

Great information

Awesome

Great

I think this panel is going to raise some very interesting questions and some heated debate. With Zoe's first-hand experience of pseudononymous blogging (and subsequent outing) it'll be fascinating. I've already got some questions I want to ask: not least, how anonymous bloggers be trusted?

Very interesting topic!

Bloggers are now getting the upper hand. I don't agree that one should be faceless in the blogosphere and blog anonymously.

Terrific info in support of small enterprise. Great idea!

yes, some bloggers should definitely be fired!