If you were ever thinking about blogging anonymously about your job in some misguided mission to ‘help’ improve your company, then here’s a lesson why this is a terrible idea.

The last day or so this blog has been the recipient of some Mini-Microsoft blog traffic thanks to Mini’s most recent entry pointing to a comment made during a public IRC conversation during Bloggercon IV where Scoble admitted Mini *is* a coward.

Scoble’s public comment surprised me because up until he announced he was leaving Microsoft he’d been a staunch supporter of Mini, believing he’d been a positive influence on Microsoft. The winds had changed.

I continue to believe anonymous bloggers claiming to be employees bashing their employers in the name of good doesn’t — and won’t — amount to anything positive for the company as a whole. It’s seems tremendously selfish thinking otherwise. I went further and called this cowardice in September last year and further blog posts, time and/or circumstance haven’t changed my opinion one iota.

Not completely inflexible here, although it might seem that way, but I’ve yet to see any significant benefit derived from a customer perspective. Maybe Mini had some juice in getting the employee towel service back or causing a few internal changes that may bear fruit in the coming days, but somebody please show the rest of us out here the Mini pro column. Anyone? Bueller?

In Mini’s comments section, Scoble adds a new wrinkle to the saga (emphasis mine):

Knowing who the author is is a HUGE part of the trust network that’s been built on blogs. Anonymous bloggers are never as credible as ones who stick their names on things.

Why does it bother me? Cause Mini is being used by non-Microsoft employees to hurt Microsoft. I’ve learned that a lot of the posts here that you’re reading aren’t done by Microsoft employees.

Yet you are taking it on face value that everyone is being straight up with you here. They are not.

This doesn’t surprise me that “a lot” of the commenters at Mini’s blog, per Scoble’s source, aren’t Microsoft employees. I wouldn’t be surprised if Mini him/herself wasn’t a Microsoft employee. I said this nearly a year ago:

For all we know, Mini Microsoft is a janitor with an axe to grind for some totally bogus reason and not even a Microsoft employee. We don’t know the amount and/or degree of spin being applied to the facts. Maybe he’s married to a bitter Microsoft employee and getting the juice that way? Whatever and however he is really getting the information, we don’t truly know as readers through what glasses the story is being spun and that puts a huge cloud of suspicion and doubt around the information.

For the Mini fans ask yourself if you would feel the same way about the material if you found it was ghost written by non-employees?

For awhile I haven’t read Mini’s blog or comment section except when pointed there by others (which happens too frequently for my liking, BTW). This time Mini can thank Dare Obasanjo a (seemingly rare?) Microsoft employee who believes Mini “does more harm than good to Microsoft.”

Look, there are so many positive ways to help your company. Blogging should be the absolute last resort way of opening employer-employee lines of communication. Consider that the equivalent of using dynamite to open a door when you don’t have the key.

• Scoble says he’ll quit on the spot if Mini is fired
• Mini-Microsoft: credible or coward?
• Microsoft sues Google
• Microsoft #42 out of 100 best companies to work for, Google ineligible
• For employees Microsoft throws in the towels
• Employee non-work internet activity during work hours