Let employees or associates contribute to a blog, and you’re ensuring that your organizational voice will be diverse and dynamic. Of course, you need to be prepared for backlash should someone post something controversial. That is, in effect, the “cost of doing business” in the blogosphere.

Such was the case when a Google employee shared some critique of the new Michael Moore film “Sicko“; this San Francisco Chronicle article sums it up nicely.

In Google’s case, Lauren Turner, an account planner for Google, wrote on Google’s health care advertising blog that “Sicko,” a newly released expose of the health care industry, was one-sided and said that it failed to show the health system’s positive contributions such as attention to patient care and philanthropy.

Backlash has been fervent, and Google has bent over backwards to repent–saying the post represented that employee’s opinion exclusively, and did not speak for the company itself. The backpeddling is perhaps pardonable, but Google could show a bit of backbone. Expression, not apology, is blog lifeblood. Of course, there’s no room for the profane, pornographic, or prejudicial, but let’s not let mob mentality squelch topical conversation.

It would be nice to live in a world where people respected individual opinion without incriminating an entire corporation, but that’s not the case. All the more reason for companies to keep a weather eye on their blog content. If your company has a wide-open blogging policy, then be ready to ride it out. If you need a little more command of message and control of content, develop a guiding statement of purpose, and then set up an editorial system that quickly reviews and approves posts.

The days of a blog on every organizational website are fast approaching. The time to start thinking about focus, tone, and approach is now.