I'm not sure it's a waste of company time. It does a few things. It lets the world see how employees view things, and shows your talent, which may increase confidence in your products.

It's definitely a fine line between giving away secrets or competitive advantage and showing off your company.

I think publishing is a great way to do things as well, but magazines and sites like this offer limited opportunities. As much as we publish, we couldn't publish from every DBA if they all sent in articles. If you can't get published or don't want to go through the editing hassles, then blogging makes some sense.

Of course, we're pretty light on the editing here, so send in your articles!