Blogs allow everyone to have a public voice.  Most of us don’t have experience controlling that voice.  Over the years we have learned to moderate our email responses, to stop take a breath before shooting a harsh email to our boss, client or colleague.  I usually write the email immediately and save it as a draft and wait a day to send.  100% of the time I edit that email the next day.

The current issues at TechCrunch UK (assuming you know about that situation) could have been avoided if Sam simply wrote his post as a draft and waited a day, or simply clicked “Edit timestamp” to publish the next day in his WordPress CMS.  On Mike’s personal blog he even admits:

Sam and I exchanged words this morning and I said he basically fired himself with that second to last post promoting his events. But nothing had been publicized and we certainly could have discussed a work around, public apology, retraction, etc. But the next thing I knew he’d posted on the blog about his dismissal. Until that happened, everything was reversible. After he took that step, the situation was no longer able to be resolved.

Get it?  Sam could have likely resolved the situation had he simply waited a day before lashing out on his blog.  We all have disagreements.  We all get angry.  But at the end of the day cooler heads prevail and we figure out how to work together.  Bloggers should remember ~ social media is very powerful, far more powerful than one-to-one conversations such as email.  You have a responsibility to think about society before posting (not just your own immediate gut reaction).  Just my two cents…