I liveblogged BlogHer's first of five discussions at SXSW, starring Laina Dawes, Jory Des Jardins, Elaine Liner, Evelyn Rodriguez, Elisa Camahort. Good discussion included some important edge back from the audience, many of whom expressed surprise at Laina's and Elaine's surprise at losing their jobs over their blogs. I agree with Chris Carfi that Jory had a terrific point about how blogs are affecting business communications in general. And this exchange brought the house down:

Laina Dawes: "As a black woman, I blog because I have to. Unless you're Condoleezza Rice, no one cares what you have to say. [talks about being  part of a transcultural adoption into a white family.] My parents do read my blog, so I try to keep the profanity down. Wrote a scathing article on Hurrricane Katrina. I had an uncle who felt I was calling my entire family white supremacists... I have to say, it's my life, it's my blog, and I do what I have to do. I cannot restrict what I have to say."

Elisa Camahort: "So you'll say white supremacists, but you won't say fucking white supremacists."

Laughter, as Elisa and Laina howl from the podium.

Here's the play-by-play - please note: I was both listening and typing, so please forgive any sentence rearrangements and/or losses in the threads. All additions/edits/improvements welcome below!

Elisa Camahort opened with the results of BlogHer's survey, "Sex and Money still taboo," of 185 people on whether bloggers feel comfortable outing one's personal life in the workplace. Net-net result: Despite the prevalent media image that bloggers--particularly personal bloggers--talk all about their sex lives, they do have boundaries. Among the results Elisa mentioned at the beginning of the panel were:

• 84 percent report never having gotten negative feedback.
• 49 percent say they blog to establish themselves as a thought leader
• 39 percent say they've gotten positive customer feedback
• 28 percent say their blog has lead to a writing /speaking engagement

Then she asked the crowd how many blog about sex (few hands go up). Then she asks if anyone talks about salary. One hand went up: Liz Henry's. Liz tells the world blogged her entire Social Security income. Why? asked Elisa. "Because it was funny. There were years of zeros." Laughter.

Elisa Camahort "If you worked for a corporation, do you think you would blog the way you do now?"

Evelyn Rodriguez says blogs have been the reason she has been hired, but notes that there's a risk - if they don't like you, then you're out. She doesn't have a way of knowing who has said yes v. no to her after seeing her blog because it's invisible to her. She thinks it works for her. She says it helps her find people "I really do want to work with, it's been a help because it's not a huge shock or surprise who I am."

Elisa: "Have you thought about reducing the amount you blog?"

Evelyn: "People who have written to me who really like the stuff I write, and I write a lot about spirituality too, tend to be venture capitalists and Ceos and attorneys who think oh, another million isn't necessarily going to make me happy. It's taking me in a new direction."

Elisa: "Has anyone ever made a business decision based on a preconceived notion from Googling people online?"

Todd Sattersten: "Yes, it eliminated some candidates. One was trashing their former employer. The odd thing is that the Web site was clearly mentioned on his resume."

Scott Allen. "I did and actually it was a very positive experience. I was writing a book on virtual business relationships. My co-author approached me through one of the Yahoo Groups. One of the first things I did was Google his name... (they ended up writing together)."

Jory Des Jardins: "There was always a dichotomy between my professional and personal lives. I actually was very frustrated with my career until I started combining the two. I was a very frustrated magazine writer in NYC for a couple of years, and ...then when I started blogging, I started hearing from people" who wanted her to write for them.

Laina Dawes: "At work I had to do the step-n-fetch-it routine. When I went home I would blog about race relations. What I made the mistake of doing is that I listed my personal blog site when I applied for an internal positions. ...One day, they turned me down for a raise. I went home and without listing the company' name, I said I really feel a little underappreciated and I would really like to write full time and I'm not sure what I want to do with my life."

Elisa: "Is that fair/unfair?"

Man in the audience: "Does any of us have the right to think that people don't read our blogs? Would you have put this in an email to your boss? If not, I think there's really nothing to be upset about."

Laina: "I don't know why I (was laid off)....I'm very upfront about my blogging on race. I did think some of the people at my work, would be too conservative." But she never mentioned the name of the firm or people there. "I was foolish to a point, but I wasn't that foolish."

Elisa: "It raises a point: Where was...who disagrees?"

Lainie Duro: Just mentioning events that happen at work without mentioning people or place, that seems [going too far]. It's a public space. It's like going to a bar and and then going to work .

Scott Allen again: Do you want to keep working for a place that would fire you for that. Do you want to be in a place that allow that freeedom of impressions. I bet that if Robert Scoble blogged about it, he wouldn't get fired.

Yeah, now he wouldn't get fired, says someone in the audience in an aside.

Laina: "I was very happy to get laid off because I hated my job. ...Instead of worrying about making money and paying off student loans and the stresses that were keeping me in that position, ...it really was a learning experience for me. I will never work in a corporate environment again. I learned from that."

Betsy Devine: "For most of us, our sex lives involve at least one other person, so in many cases it violates then."

Jake McKee: "There's a shift in how much we're able to reveal about ourselves. There's a shift going on between the generations...teenagers that are growing up now, they don't know that separation."

Anastasia Goodstein: "I think some of them think about it and some of them don't. Many of them are grappling with how public they want to be in this medium."

Daniel Terdiman (for CNET.com): "Just like we're adapting to this new medium and how much we put out there about ourselves, do we think that employers are going to have to learn that people are going to do that?"

Elaine Liner: "That was my employer's problem - they didn't have a policy. They didn't know how to deal with it. The easiest thing was not to renew my contract." Her "outing" also sparked a conversation at the Dallas Observer, which lead to a discovery that many journalists there had secret blogs and now they have a daily blog that everyone in the newsroom adds to. "Student athletes are losing scholarships because they have naked pictures on their web site? They're going to have to learn. I taught writing and other media courses at SMU. I decided that instead of them writing journalists, I would have them write a blog. And as long a they were doing it, I decided to do it too. I thought, well, what would I write about? I can't blog about my sex life because one entry a year won't make a blog. Laughter. I have 15 years of stories about live as an adjunct professor. You make the leaast money, you're not invited to the parties. In the past 15 years, I've seen a big shifts in power. I've done three months of mediation for grades I've given, I've heard every excuse. I've heard it, seen it, lived it. On my blog I wrote a lot of flattering heartwarming stories. I also wrote about parents who were [babying their kids,] not treating them as though they were 20, 21 years old....I felt I was through the looking glass. If I were a parent with a kid going to college I would want to know why there are no more Friday classes. It's to accommodate students' drinking schedules. What happened to me, happened in a department where the first amendment has been carved in limestone over the entrance. I took the students outside the building the day fter I found out and said, I'm letting you kow that I'm pretty much being let go. I think it has something to do with something I've written. And later the students came up to me and said, 'We all read your blog.' I said, 'How do you know it was me?!' They recognized how I write. They'd read me.

I was fired because I told their secrets. I make $200 a week on a campus where it costs $35k to send your kids there and the kids drive two cars. I had a point of view, I wrote about a specific thing. I thought this was just happening in my world, in this unique campus. I was wrong. I heard from [professors all over the world] that this was happening to them too.

Elisa to the room: "Do you think what she was writing was grounds for dismissal?"

Guy in short sleeves: "For SMU, yeah."

Jake McKee: "I wouldn't have wanted to do it myself, but from their perspective, yeah."

Elaine: "Nobody was really writing what life was really like on a college campus."

Lisa Canter: "I wonder if they would have had the guts to fire you if you weren't anonymous?"

Elaine: "When the press would go to them and ask [why my contract wasn't renewed], the answer would always change. My favorite was the answer from the chair of my dept: 'Words hurt.' " They tried to sue me. They consulted detectives. The laywers had to confirm that I wasn't a libelist. Member of my department never spoke to me. I think they resented it much more later when I gained some success for it."

Dan: "It was a surprise when Dooce was fired but can it be now?"

Elisa: "How many of you think about it before you post? How many of you don't? (Half and half)"

Redhead: Told her company lawyers she had a blog.

Laina Dawes: "As a black woman, I blog because I have to. Unless you're Condoleezza Rice, no one cares what you have to say. Transcultural adoption from a white family. My parents do read my blog, so I try to keep the profanity down. Wrote a scathing article on Hurrricane Katrina. I had an uncle who felt I was calling my entire family white supremacists. I have to say, it's my life, it's my blog, and I do what I have to do. I cannot restrict what I have to say."

Elisa Camahort: "So you'll say white supremacists, but you won't say fucking white supremacists."

Laughter.

Laina Dawes: "I called my dad and said, what do I do? ? Then I decided I wasn't going to change anything becaue I still meant every word of it. It's what I have to do in order to maintain my sanity."

George Kelly: "How has blogging mattered to you?"

Laina Dawes: "Negrophile was a god-send for me. Finding that online list has been a huge help. 90 percent of the feedback I get is positive."

Audience member: "The reality of the corporate culture is, "hey, we don't want you to be individual. We want you to confm to the corporate culture." Having experienced this ...do you think, 'hey people like me for who I am and I need to work with this. This is an opportunity for me?' "

Jory Des Jardins: "I actually consult to companies who are trying to figure it out. Businesses have become commoditized. The way we distinguish ourselves is by showing some personality. Businesses are starting to get that personality is of value."

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