Dress codes for avatars?

Gartner has expressed the view that companies should develop dress codes for their employees' avatars. Computer Weekly and ITPro have both had their say on the subject.

A few years back, when I attended a Second Life workshop, the woman who was facilitating it boasted an avatar with the face of a fox (literally, not metaphorically) and an, er, interesting outfit. My own looked and dressed like me. I felt a little staid. As if I had missed the opportunity for creativity. I was tempted to go for something a bit more outlandish, but decided that a situation might arise in which I wanted a more accurate representation of myself.

I have mixed feelings about the idea of avatar dress codes. I can understand that a company with a virtual world presence will want to project the same sort of professional image online as they do face to face. But I also wonder how far they can push this. Will it just be about dress, or will people be restricted as to body shapes and accuracy of representation? Could a large, bald man be prevented from having an avatar that is a slim man (or even woman) with a full head of hair?

As with blogging policies, there's a lot of grey area here. There's the situation in which you represent your organisation. There's the situation in which you in no way represent an organisation and are free to pursue other interests. But then there's the situation in which you represent yourself, but in a space related to your profession, and therefore populated by clients, potential clients, colleagues, competitors and so on.

I ask the same question here as I did when blogging policies were the hot topic. Where do terms of employment butt up against individual liberties? This is risky turf.

What do you reckon?

Blogging - when the rope hits the rudder

One of the major risks for employees who blog is that of causing offence to clients and finding themselves in the dog box as a consequence.

Let's say, for example, you attend a meeting with a client in which the client expresses a view that you disagree with. This client is by no means the only one to express this view and it is something you have addressed in various spaces, including your blog, on more than one occasion. You try to reason with the client, to no avail.

So (you think) you exercise your right to free speech and you write about it on your blog. Again. You know this is an issue many members of your network encounter, too, and you wonder how they deal with it. You point out your objections to the client's line of reasoning. You carefully omit the client's name and any other indicators that might reveal their identity.

A few people stop by your post and submit comments. Some of these are not very tactfully couched. Quite rude, in fact. But you publish them, because (you think) they're exercising their right to free speech.

Then someone from the client side who was present at the meeting stumbles across your post and identifies their organisation as being the one being referred to. They take exception. They take even greater exception to the comments, for which they hold you accountable.

They tell your company that they never want you anywhere near their project again.

This puts your manager in a difficult position. Are you guilty of gross misconduct and therefore dismissable? Can you be quietly redeployed elsewhere? Are the powers that be higher up the food chain baying for your head on a pike? Can he/she get away with slapping you on the wrist and saying "Bad blogger! Don't ever do that again"? Would/should you comply? What action could he/she take if you didn't? Where is the line? Where is the black and the white and what the heck is all this grey stuff?

Many companies have avoided formalising a policy in respect of blogging because of the minefield it constitutes - particularly in respect of privately held, professional interest blogs. It's more straightforward if yours is a corporate blog on behalf of the organisation or if, at the other end of the spectrum, yours is a blog that centres on your leisure pastimes and does not address issues within the organisation's sphere of influence. It's that one in-between that's the blighter! how do they establish a defensible, enforceable policy that restricts what you may and may not say in a blog that is your private-but-very-public property without infringing your rights?

This provides the hapless manager with no guidelines to work from. There are no formal rules that have been broken, so it's difficult ot know what course of action to take. Is a disciplinary procedure in order? Dare he/she go that route, knowing that you might retaliate with an action of your own about freedom of expression and rights and stuff?

Your manager probably hopes that you'll go quietly. Do you?