Transparency is a popular buzzword and a valuable concept in public relations and in the news these days. This New York Times story reminded me this week just how transparent all our technology and connectedness has made nearly all of us, virtually overnight:

In February, during the course of reporting on a video blogging initiative at Microsoft called Channel 9, Fred Vogelstein inadvertently received a 13-page, 5,500-word internal memo from Waggener Edstrom Worldwide, a firm that represents Microsoft. The document, which was meant to prepare Microsoft executives for interviews, contained frank details, including some less-than-flattering observations (“Fred’s stories tend to be a bit sensational, though he would consider them to be balanced and fair”), scripted responses to questions and a strong-arm list of the points the agency expected to see in the piece.

It only made matters worse that the original Wired story was intended to focus on Microsoft’s corporate transparency in allowing its employees to blog about their work.

Noting that the article Mr. Vogelstein wrote was about a Microsoft project that permits employees to blog about the company’s corporate doings — a concept called “radical transparency” — Mr. Shaw said, “In a lot of ways, it was irresistible to Wired to bring attention to it. To show it as the polar opposite of the transparency piece they were working on.”

Mr. Vogelstein said in a telephone interview that the memo, which made its way into an e-mail message about appointment scheduling, gave him a weird sense of voyeurism.

“We all want to know what everybody thinks about us, but I think most of us, if we found out, would be sorry,” he said. “Some of the stuff I was totally fine with, but I objected to being called ‘tricky’ and I thought, ‘Wow — they really think that?’ ”

I would argue that there is radical transparency in our culture now, but not the kind engendered by Microsoft’s blogging initiative (which sounds like an admirable idea, for what it’s worth). This reminds me of advice I’ve heard around the office from time to time, usually when writing a news release: “Don’t write it unless you’d be comfortable seeing it on the front page of the newspaper.” Or in the next issue of Wired magazine.

The thing is, I’d expect that most of us have emails or private documents we’d rather not arrive in the harsh light of public view. The challenge, I think, is to remember that the next time we’re sitting in front of the keyboard.

[Thanks to Bulldog Reporter for pointing out this news.]