How To Tame the Social Network At Work

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."

Comments

Social Icon

[hey]

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.

Facebook Account

[Stargoat]

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?

Re:Facebook Account

[Anonymous Coward]

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

Re:Facebook Account

[slim]

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.

Nobody forces you to put sensitive private information on there. You can block any apps that irritate you.

My contacts have settled down into a very mature use pattern now; it's used for twitter-like microblogging, sharing photos, and -- crucially -- for forum-like discussions e.g. planning a party or some other kind of get-together. I haven't had a virtual sheep thrown at me, nor been bitten by a virtual zombie, for years.

Sure, you could say "I can use email for that", but if everyone else would prefer to use Facebook, your not being on it causes them a nuisance.

It's also quite handy for remembering people's birthdays ;)

Re:Facebook Account

[UnknowingFool]

Depends on what reason you want to use Facebook. I have a large family all over the country. Keeping up with them would have required a major amount of effort without Facebook. For example I have 2 new nieces and it's very nice that my brother posts pictures of them periodically. That was my primary reason. The secondary reason is to keep up with friends, some of whom I would have never found again. Last it's another way for people to reach me (that I can ignore if I choose). Yes some people are in it for the vanity. It's a tool like everything else.

Re:Facebook Account

[slim]

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.

Re:Facebook Account

[somersault]

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.

Ha! Try and stop me!

[Nursie]

I browse facebook via an encrypted tunnel to a private server!

So it probably just looks like I'm funnelling in and out company secrets or something...

do what at work now?

[Anonymous Coward]

... as I sit at work reading about how to tame social networks at work ...

Was that info or a commercial?

[gti_guy]

The article looks like little more than an advertisement for "FaceTime's Socialite or Palo Alto Networks' next-generation firewalls".

Resistance is Futile

[digitaldc]

"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"

Wait, are we talking about social networking here? or the Borg invasion from 'Star Trek: First Contact?'

I wonder if they know about Facebook on iPhone?

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

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.

what firewall?

[digitalsushi]

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?)

Re:what firewall?

[gblackwo]

Unemployment? That usually does the trick.

Re:what firewall?

[Ephemeriis]

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.

Re:what firewall?

[slim]

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.

Re:what firewall?

[Monkeedude1212]

That depends on what kind of Droid he has. Like if he has an R2 unit, that thing'll just plug right into the wall socket and edit the Employee Database so he is still on a paycheck!

Requirement?

[Yvan256]

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.

Hahaha!!

[decipher_saint]

'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.

Easy Solution

[mhesler]

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

Technology is not the answer

[Philodoxx]

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.

Re:man up and block it. you don't need it.

[i_b_don]

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

They allow facebook because they WANT to spy

[mathmathrevolution]

I am convinced that my company decided to allow Facebook because they wanted direct access to people's personal lives and if you use Facebook over the network you give that to them. They can monitor and store every interaction with FB, and nosy managers can get access to this whenever they want. If they didn't let people access FB over their network, then they couldn't legally invade their privacy.