Chris Clarke started work at Thornley Fallis yesterday. I’m a couple thousand miles away in Vancouver – and yet I know what his first day was like and that it was pretty good. Yikes!

So, we hired a blogger. Yep. That’s what we wanted to do. So that we could learn. So that we could advise our clients from direct experience on what they will (and should) experience as they embrace social media.

But that doesn’t mean that I didn’t hold my breath while I read Chris’ blog. Happily, we seem to have come out OK on day one. I know there will be some days when we aren’t quite the place we would like to be (no company is.) But for now we’re OK.

And I plan to take another deep breath and encourage Chris to keep posting. Honestly. Intelligently.

Right now, our company blog policy is two words, “Blog Smart.” Up until now, that has meant that people like Terry Fallis, David Jones and I said pretty much what we wanted. With one exception. We didn’t give away client secrets.

I think that I’ll ask Chris to work with me to develop a slighter longer policy that provides more guidance to new bloggers (we have a bunch of other people who are launching a new blog. More about that later.)

As a first addition to “blog smart,” perhaps we should add “Cause no harm to any person.” I think this should be enough for each of us to be honest about what goes on in the workplace, but also to ensure that we pause before we publish anything that might embarrass or otherwise hurt a colleague (there are other more effective, one-on-one ways to deal with office strife.)

What do you think? “Blog smart. Cause no harm to any person.” Is that enough for our blog policy – or do we need to add more?