His posts were being flagged by the PR team.
I suspect it's because he was discussing products without going through the PR team (because they would have told him to stop).
All my arguments are from the article itself.
> He was effectively self-grooming for the position, isn't that what you're supposed to do?
If someone from marketing came down and started force pushing code to production, would that be self-grooming? No, you'd expect a PR and some review process, which wasn't occurring here.
It seems the SVP was in company representative in charge of PR / social media? If so, he was the party responsible for the team and thus "the team"?
> The SVP backchanneled unfounded complaints to my director in order to get me in trouble.
Seems like the SVP was going through the command chain to direct his complaints / concerns to you. That's the typical way corporate structures work.
The causality you're implying (if not explying) seems inverted.
The article specifically says that they were not.
He would have received warnings that he was violating company policy. The SVP would have addressed him directly and asked him to stop tweeting about the company instead of asking him to be taught. His manager wouldn't have been confused about the complaint.
None of your arguments are from the article. You're going way out of your way to assume the engineer is in the wrong and omitting information in the article.
are you reading something I'm not?
It says other companies were asking HIM how his company used socials for PR.
> I sent these inquiries over to our PR department
He directed these companies over to their PR department for an actual answer, he didn't send his posts over to the PR department.
> After fielding several of my PR referrals, I eventually got the attention of a senior vice president (...) He then asked me if I could teach him how to use Twitter.
This SVP noticed he was basically sending them free marketing and decided it would be great to learn how to use it himself.
Nothing in your quote says he was sending his posts over to PR for approval at all.
> I was super excited I was actually getting an opportunity to pursue my engineering dreams. The word "engineer" was even in my job title!
He joined twitter and started sending his content to the PR team for approval:
> In fact, I was so prolific on social media that I got the attention of several industry analysts who asked how my company used social media for brand promotion and marketing. Of course, since I was in engineering, I sent these inquiries over to our PR department. ... I often tweeted about what we were doing, what the company was releasing, and what conferences I would attend. I understood the confidentiality policies at the company and never shared any confidential information. The company even gave me formal PR training so I would know what I could and couldn't say. ... After fielding several of my PR referrals, I eventually got the attention of a senior vice president at the company, let's call him Rick Dickerson. He then asked me if I could teach him how to use Twitter.
The author was clearly stepping out of their role and impacting public relations. The SVP asked them to explain what they were doing and be introduced to those the engineer was working with (in social media). Then they flagged future content and told them to stop.
The SVP was ensuring they had the information they needed to protect the company and then limit any future off-message content being produced. The SVP wanted this engineer out of the social media space and needed him stopped.
> At that moment, it became clear that the SVP didn't just want to get me away from anything social media related in the company; he wanted me out of the company entirely. He was trying to get me fired.
I'm not saying I would have done it this way, but this is what happened via the article.