Work-related blogs as creative resistance

Work-related blogs get quite a bit of attention in the popular media and last year saw three (that I know of) turned in to books.

Last week while Googling around for any further reports or mention of "work-related blogs", "employee blogs", "job blogs", "workblogging", etc. I came across an interesting piece of work on this very matter by Abigail Schoneboom.

The working paper is called Diary of a Working Boy: Creative Resistance Among Anonymous Workbloggers and can be downloaded here.

It's particularly ironic for myself as I'm just about in the final stages of finishing my second working paper (really a better version of the first!) on work-related blogs, for a conference in Amsterdam next month - a paper that I will put on-line after I've presented it.

A quick summary of the study follows:

...the study aims to understand the intersection between workblogging, creative writing, and social change, capturing the appeal of humdrum office jobs to aspiring writers and activists who pursue their emancipation clandestinely within the organisation.

I particularly like a further line from the abstract:

In an era where employers increasingly seek to improve worker productivity by nurturing a strong organisational culture based on informal bonds and self-management, workbloggers use their writing to buffer themselves against the company’s attempt to secure their hearts and minds, making fun of management gurus and celebrating ways to reclaim time while appearing to be hard at work.

Well worth a read!