On Safe Blogging

Sometimes I feel odd about the level of anonymity I try to keep on this blog: I don't use last names, sometimes not first names, and my clients are by city only... which can be tough when in the family we all refer to a family as "The Gustafsons", but in the blog I say "Matt and Krista" (and yes, those are made up too). This paranoia may or may not be justified, but something just happened to a good friend which encourages me to keep it anonymous:

My friend Paul is working for a major entertainment company on a project with a very high profile Property: The exact nature of his work has not even been whispered to me, and I consider myself a pretty good friend. It's one of those "if this gets out..." sort of things. I know enough about it to know I shouldn't know more, and even if I did know more, I should keep it quiet.

Paul got together one night with an old friend who helped him get established in the business, and this friend is something of a high profile guy himself - an 80's pop star (and I do mean STAR) who has reinvented himself as a geek god. The two shared a good bit of wine and swapped stories...

And The Friend posted something on his (quite well read) blog about the evening, using Paul's full name, and indicating a talk about The Property in detail. Now, he didn't reveal more than I already knew, and Paul has kept things close to his vest with ME, but the unmistakable thing gleaned from his posting was that "There's something new coming in this franchise, and Paul told me about it".

The story has been picked up on the interwebs, and I've seen Paul's name on Ain't It Cool, IO9, and others... Poor guy. I am deeply hopeful that he keeps his job, and The Friend posted a retraction a few hours later... but the damage is done: Paul is believed to HAVE TALKED ABOUT THE PROJECT.

And so, I will keep my musings anonymous, if not for my own sake, then for the sake of those I write about. And on my Tales of the 90's blog, while I do use SOME names there, it's all ancient history (over 10 years), and nobody gets in trouble. I promise.