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How To Tame the Social Network At Work

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the with-a-whip-and-chair dept.

snydeq writes "InfoWorld's Dan Tynan provides an in-depth report on how IT can tame social networking at work without shutting the organization off to the kinds of business opportunities today's social networks present. 'They're a productivity sink and a bandwidth suck. They're a vector for malware and a gift for corporate spies. They're a data spill just waiting to happen. And like it or not, they're already inside your enterprise,' Tynan writes. 'Most companies are in denial about how much their employees are using social nets, as well as what they can do to stop it.' Worse, many are still balking at the fact that having a presence on social networks is rapidly becoming a requirement for doing business. Strict commonsense policies, next-generation firewalls, data leak prevention software — all can decrease your company's exposure to the risks inherent in social networking while still enabling your company to solve problems, burnish its public image, recruit top talent, and generate ideas through social networks."

20 of 130 comments (clear)

  1. Social Icon by hey · · Score: 5, Insightful

    That Slashdot "social" icon of the two hands shaking has gotta go. Maybe it applied to LinkedIn but not Facebook, etc. How about an image of somebody taking a photo of them self.

  2. Facebook Account by Stargoat · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Is it time to get a Facebook Account? I've been on Slashdot for years and as far as I was concerned, that's the only web social interaction I need. Sure, I've got a LinkedIn account, but that doesn't really count.

    Slashdot has been cutting off journal entries and making it tougher to post stuff. It doesn't prompt the journals or make it easy to search through them. I wish Slashdot would change this, but there doesn't seem to be any impetuous towards this.

    Everyone else it seems is on Facebook, but let's face it. Most of them are fairly to exceedingly lame, while the people around here are people who's opinion I want to hear. Still, these fairly to exceedingly lame individuals are my coworkers, friends, and potential employees and employers.

    Will it be necessary to have a Facebook account in 2011?

    --
    Hoist Number One and Number Six.
    1. Re:Facebook Account by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I get all the "productivity sink and a bandwidth suck" I need right here too.

    2. Re:Facebook Account by kidgenius · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Is it time to get a Facebook Account?

      It depends on network effects. Are many of your friends/family using Facebook? If so, it might be polite to them if you were to sign up.

      Polite to them?! Umm...i'm close enough (not in the geographic sense) to my friends and family that when we want to talk, hang out, or get together, we use that crazy new invention called the telephone. You might not have heard of it, as it's a fairly new thing....

    3. Re:Facebook Account by slim · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Yeah, the phone has its uses.

      But, example -- I went to a music festival with a group of about 10 people, some of whom I'm close to, some of whom I'm not. We did all the organisation -- when and where to meet up, where to camp, who's driving, what to take, etc. in a thread in a private Facebook group.

      I think that having an asynchronous, persistent system like that is a lot easier for ongoing conversations with more than, say, 4 people.

      Yes, email, or a forum, or Google Wave (RIP) fits the bill too. But in this case the originator of the conversation chose Facebook, so it's likely that anyone not on it would have been excluded from the conversation (maybe you'd be happy with that? Let everyone else discuss the options, and then phone you with their decisions, as a fait accomplis?)

      I don't see a reason *not* to get a FB account. It costs nothing. You can alleviate privacy concerns by not putting anything private on there.

    4. Re:Facebook Account by somersault · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I find telephone calls are anything but polite, they interrupt me when I'm trying to do other things. Facebook is like any other message board. You post when it's convenient for you, other people read when it's convenient for them, and more than two people can communicate simultaneously. Phone calls are a waste of time for Slim's example of organising a party.. if you have a convenient all in one message board/calendar facility like Facebook, that all your friends already use, it makes sense to use it.

      --
      which is totally what she said
    5. Re:Facebook Account by the_humeister · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Mom: Oh yeah, right there!
      Dad: You like that?
      *phone rings*
      Dad: Who the hell keeps calling us?
      kidgenius (704962): Hey guys! I'm outside your house!
      Dad: OMG! Can't u leave us alone for at least 30 minutes???

    6. Re:Facebook Account by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      You do realize that people regularly post private information about their friends publicly on Facebook? I finally gave up and deactivated my account because I was tired of constantly untagging myself from photos, videos, and other things.

      And every time Facebook added a new feature, I had to figure out all the implications and how to disable many of them. One of the worst was that friends could tag me as being in a particular location. That really ticked me off. Some of the people within my social network are not close friends, but convenient acquaintances. One was convicted of robbery in the past. Do I really want him to know that I'm at Ted's Halloween party? When I found out a friend was tagging me at certain places, it pissed me off, because it's basically a "come rob this person; they're not at home!" tag. I don't know just how long it was enabled before I found it and turned it off.

      Other peoples' careless actions can have a real and lasting effect on a social network, regardless of how careful you are with your information.

  3. I wonder if they know about Facebook on iPhone? by xxxJonBoyxxx · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The idea that corporate firewalls, IDS and content filters will stop Facebook or other social networking traffic is silly. There are hundreds of mobile devices that use consumer-grade cellular networks already in place; information WILL get out.

  4. what firewall? by digitalsushi · · Score: 5, Insightful

    My friend is on facebook all day at work. His corporate firewall is ruthless. It is without ruth. It is a brick wall with no peeping holes.

    He doesn't care since he's sitting back in his chair on his droid.

    How the heck can IT battle this? (Is it obviously a social issue?)

    --
    slashdot: where everyone yells sarcastic metaphors to themselves to understand the issue
    1. Re:what firewall? by Ephemeriis · · Score: 3, Insightful

      My friend is on facebook all day at work. His corporate firewall is ruthless. It is without ruth. It is a brick wall with no peeping holes.

      He doesn't care since he's sitting back in his chair on his droid.

      How the heck can IT battle this? (Is it obviously a social issue?)

      Yup.

      I've got a a Blackberry with 3G access. I can pull up Facebook on it just fine.

      I've also got a nook which does a less impressive job of rendering web pages, but generally gets the job done.

      Folks around me have iPhones and iPads available.

      It isn't the corporate network and workstations you need to worry about. It's all the Internet-connected devices your employees are carrying around.

      --
      "Work is the curse of the drinking classes." -Oscar Wilde
    2. Re:what firewall? by slim · · Score: 4, Insightful

      To be fair, as long as he's using FB on his droid, there's no scope for a 3rd party app to put malware on his PC.

    3. Re:what firewall? by MobileTatsu-NJG · · Score: 2, Insightful

      How the heck can IT battle this? (Is it obviously a social issue?)

      Why should they? He's not exposing the company to harm. At that point it's just a productivity issue.

      --

      "I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)

  5. Requirement? by Yvan256 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Many are still balking at the fact that having a presence on social networks is rapidly becoming a requirement for doing business

    When I want to see information about a business, I just go to their website, not FaceBook.

    1. Re:Requirement? by GrumblyStuff · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I don't know but it's practically becoming The Internet. That fucking logo is everywhere and businesses are falling all over themselves screaming, "FOLLOW US ON FACEBOOK AND TWITTER!"

      Pisses me off to no end.

      Worse still is websites doing the same thing.

      Hello! I'm on your fucking website! I don't need to go to another one to read what I want that's already right fucking here in front of me!

  6. How To Tame the Social Network At Work by sexconker · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Evaluate employees based on whether or not they perform their duties, not whether or not they look busy.

    Hold the managers to the same standard.

    If you need to squeeze more blood from the rock that is your personnel, realize that blocking sites, banning cell phone use, etc. will only drive them to do the minimum to avoid being fired. If that's what you want, go for it.

    If you want good workers, treat them like decent people. Work isn't play, but it doesn't have to be a prison, either. In the 70s we realized we should allow personal calls at work so long as they didn't take up all of your time and impact your work performance. In the 2000s, we realized that people also have personal email accounts.

    Maybe by 2030 we'll realize that people also have social lives. Hiring and firing won't be contingent on a clean slate social network profile. Socializing while at work will be tolerated as long as it doesn't impact your performance.

  7. Hahaha!! by decipher_saint · · Score: 4, Insightful

    'They're a productivity sink and a bandwidth suck. They're a vector for malware and a gift for corporate spies. They're a data spill just waiting to happen. And like it or not, they're already inside your enterprise,'

    Hahaha! I believe those things are called "people" ;-)

    Seriously though, if work gets done and private info stays private then who cares?

    I mean, go hang with the people that smoke outside the building, they talk shop nearly constantly. I've been able to inadvertently overhear some pretty interesting details about the infrastructure of several IT shops that way just by passing by and saying "hello" to co-workers enjoying a smoke break.

    --
    crazy dynamite monkey
  8. Easy Solution by mhesler · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Keep people busy and make them accountable for getting their work done. Otherwise, what's the problem?

  9. Technology is not the answer by Philodoxx · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The solution to this problem lies with management, not technology. Replace Facebook with "Playing cards" and the solution is the same. If you have somebody who wastes time at work it should be up to that person's boss to stop that behavior and get the person back to work.

    --
    Oh, a lesson in history from Mr. I'm my own grandpa.
  10. Re:man up and block it. you don't need it. by i_b_don · · Score: 3, Insightful

    So this of course means that you're also totally ok with blocking slashdot too, right?

    That's what gets me the most about this entire topic is how many people are ok with saying "facebook@work = evil, stealing from the company lazy employees!!", but "slashdot@work = ok because it helps me with some downtime to keep me productive."

    d

    --
    all language nazi's will burne in heil!