Jane Hart
seeks rebuttal to
reasons commonly given by organizations for banning social media at work. I have heard some of these. Here’s why I believe organizations should NOT ban social media, rather find ways to leverage it. Some of these are in the Indian context of hiring and retaining workforce. I am adding an 11
th reason that I have heard for why organizations ban social media that could perhaps make it to the list.
11. Social media takes up too much of company’s Internet bandwidth hampering other work.
Given the advantages of social media, and reducing cost of bandwidth, it might be a very worthwhile investment by the organization. Investing in bandwidth is probably as critical, if not more, than investing in higher-end machines and laptops.
10. Social media is a fad.
If so do you want to be left behind and not know anything about it?
9. It’s about controlling the message.
If it is are you using the channels available to you and the employees? Just because social media is banned at work does not mean employees don’t have access to it at all. They are on it whether you like it or not. And if you are indeed worried about controlling the message, are you on the same channels are your employees are?
8. Employees will goof off.
If employees have to goof off they will, whether they have access to social media at work or not. If you are managing your work allocation and performance management well, and have the right business measurements in place, it doesn’t really matter whether employees goof off or not. If you are measuring the time they are spending on activities rather than the results they are expected to achieve, you are probably a lawyer or a consultant billing by the hour. I can’t comment on lawyers but as a consultant, you better focus on results or you’ll be out of business.
7. Social media is a time waster.
See point 8.
6. Social media has no business purpose.
If your customers aren’t on social media, investors aren’t on social media, stakeholders are not on social media, employees are not on social media, competition is not on social media, and you don’t believe in continual learning, keeping track of market trends etc., then yeah, perhaps social media serves no business purpose for you.
5. Employees can’t be trusted.
If you can’t trust of your employees, why are you in the business that needs employees? Do you trust them enough to let them talk on phones, use email? Then you can trust them with social media. Yeah sure there are sensitivities of using social media on which you should coach your employees, just as you would to use the phone or email. The
video talks about employees can’t be trusted to not put up photos on the office party. Well what’s the harm? It’s a great opportunity to tell the world what a fun place to work your organization is, and therefore attract more talent for your organization, especially when the workforce is getting younger (also see point 4).
4. Don’t cave into the demands of the millennials.
Enough demographic studies show that in India the workforce is getting younger. Wouldn’t you want to create an environment that your workforce relates to and enjoys? Would you want to create an environment that your workforce finds stifling? You could potentially use social media access as a retention strategy.
3. Your teams already share knowledge efficiently.
Cool, so you will understand how social media makes it easier to serve this objective.
2. You’ll get viruses.
So get better anti-virus protection software and better processes to update your computer with latest patches.
1. Your competition isn't using it, so why should you?
Don’t all business gurus tell you to do things your competition isn’t doing to get ahead in business? Do you really have this as a reason for banning social media at work? Duh!
Now don’t get me wrong. I love measurement. Heck, I measure everything, Everything! I am the epitome of measurement. Okay, perhaps that’s stretching it too far but you get the picture. I believe measurement is a critical step to bring about any change and improvement. Yet, I have been shying away from measurement lately. Well, I am still measuring but am generally becoming resistant to pushing the envelope too far on measurement. Which got me thinking.
When does measurement become a pain in the wrong part of our anatomy? When do we start resisting measurement? I think this happens when:
- we stop playing the game and become score keepers. When measurement becomes an end in itself.
- measurement starts to be more difficult and time consuming than the actual work that you are trying to measure.
- we look for absolute precision in measurement when accuracy is all that is required.
- it is just hard to measure softer parameters and kills the fun of actual work, like trying to measure creativity, innovation, culture, learning etc.
- we are afraid that measurement will be used against us in performance appraisals, or for comparing us with peers.
- one measure will lead to the requirement of measuring another, will lead to… …
When have you resisted measurement?
Pic by HeyThereSpaceman.
So I succumbed to pressure and signed up my daughter on Facebook. Most of her friends are already on Facebook. In just a few hours, she has 7 friends and 3 more pending requests. Her FB wall is now active and flowing. I browsed her wall updates and some of her friends’ profiles and I am… PETRIFIED, and that’s an understatement. So I plan to give her a printout of the following rules for Facebook.
- Don't talk to strangers. Just as we tell you not to talk to strangers in real life, the same rule applies online. Do not accept friend requests from people you don't know.
- Watch what you say. Again similar to what's preached to you for real life, be careful of what you say. In case of writing anything online, the consequences are of much higher magnitude. Remember, what you write online will be there forever, be read by everyone, and be interpreted by the reader and not necessarily in the way you might have intended. Don't write anything that you wouldn't say directly face to face. Don't think your teachers won't be able to read what you have written simply because they are not on your friend list.
- Censor the pictures you post. Don't post pictures that you don't want everyone to see. If you want show your friends pictures, show them in person instead of posting online. Remember, pictures you post online will be seen by all and will be there permanently on the Internet. Your teachers will also see these pictures. So be very careful about which pictures you post online. Initially seek approval from your parents for all pictures you want to post online.
- All that glitters is not gold. Do not be lured in by the ‘cool offers’ or prizes you may have won. And don’t click on EVERYTHING that comes along on your wall. Be careful of applications you access and the sites you might visit through the incoming links. Don’t go to sites that you are not supposed to. ASK if you are not sure which ones but I am sure you do know. UPDATE: This applies to profiles of your favorite TV and film stars. The profiles of your favorite stars might not actually be by the stars themselves. Be careful, it could be just about anyone putting up the profile.
- Safeguard your privacy. Do not give out more information than necessary information to anyone. Don’t enter your personal details like address, phone number etc. for contests, quizzes etc.
- Always give your correct age. Okay, well at least until you are 21. Do not try to project yourself to be older than what you are, even if your friends are doing so.
- Do not make your profile public. I have set your profile settings to be private. If and when you discover how to change the settings, just make sure your settings stay private and not viewable by everyone.
UPDATE from Nancy Curtis on Facebook: ABSOLUTELY NON-NEGOTIABLE RULE OF ALL RULES for Facebook: you MUST be friends with your parent(s) and you MUST not use privacy settings to block your parents from any part of your page. Failure to comply with this requirement (which pertains to any and all social-networking sites including YouTube, etc) results in immediate, indefinite, complete suspension of any non-supervised non-school related computer access. (Also, the correllary is: your parent MUST always have the password to any and all of your email accounts.)
And here are some guidelines that I really wish she would follow.
- Write proper English, please!!! Please please don’t just write SMS English. Writing full words will help you learn the language and your spellings too.
- Don’t ask me to take quizzes. Don’t forward me the quizzes you take or ‘cool applications’ or the gifts. Oh wait, perhaps you should, so I can keep an eye on what you are doing.
Did I miss anything out? Am I being too paranoid?
Had an interesting chat with Mark Oehlert on Twitter.
moehlert Dr Mike Echols "people quit their bosses, not their jobs".
manishmo @moehlert Not always true (ppl quitting on boss and not job). Have had ppl profess their faith in me as a boss but still quit.
moehlert @manishmo I hear ya, I think Echols was referring to a generational difference - that X'ers r less likely than Boomers to put up w/ bad boss
manishmo @moehlert Intrstng. I read it as Gen Xers are more likely to stick w a boss they like, even if they don't like the job. (1/2)
manishmo @moehlert (2/2) Gen Y-ers are more likely to switch jobs frequently inspite of the boss. Based a little on my own experiences.
moehlert @manishmo I think that's right too
The notion that people quit their bosses and not their jobs is probably different for Gen X and Gen Y. Gen X is more likely to stick to a good boss even if they don’t like the job. Gen Y is likely to quit the job even if they like the boss. I read in an India employment report (that I am trying to get my hands on to) that Gen Y-ers’ average stint in a company is about 2 years. Based on my experiences, this is quite true.
It’s happened to me a few times now. We are going somewhere and I am asked to follow someone else’s car. I observed three types of leaders:
1. The Highly skilled but somewhat Self-Centred Leader: The driver in the car ahead of me just zooms past leaving me to figure out the way myself. They are usually very skilled at manoeuvring through the traffic themselves. You will usually lose them at a traffic signal that they go past leaving you stranded waiting for the light to turn. They are nowhere to be found after the light turns green for you and you are left to find your own way.
2. The Spoon-feeding, Risk-Averse Leader: The driver in the car ahead of me treats me like a first time driver. They don’t realize the driving skills I already have. They go very slowly and cautiously so as to not lose me but in the process make me lose interest and want me to overtake them. Their slow pace could also be because they themselves don’t know the way or are new drivers themselves.
3. The Leader who you gets you to destination smoothly: The driver in the car ahead of me defines the pace I go at. They always keep an eye on me in the rear view mirror and make sure they don’t lose me. At the same time they don’t let me slow down too much, pushing me to speed up when they do. They are always waiting for me to catch up in case they lose me on a traffic signal.
So what do you do when you have someone following you, in a car or otherwise at work? Do you show off your skills and leave the followers behind to catch up? Do you consider their prior experience and leverage that or challenge them with a faster pace? Do you make sure you don’t leave anyone behind while ensuring that you maintain speed to reach your goals?
Continuing with the thread I started in my previous post
Do you trust corporate blogs, and picking up from posts on Trust by
Ken Allen and
Tony Karrer, I came across Chris Brogan’s post
Advertising and Trust. Chris wrote in response to
Jeremiah Owyang raising questions about Chris’s sponsored post for Kmart. Chris does a great job at analysing and responding. In this process I discovered many posts that talk about trust and integrity of bloggers. Two posts that caught my eye were Lucretia M. Pruitt:
What is Your Time Worth? What’s Worth Your Time? and Barbara Gibson:
What is your integrity worth? I don’t follow blogs of Jeremiah, Lucretia or Barbara, but I had no reason not to trust them. They have an opinion that they are sharing.
When I come across blog posts that talk about other products, I take them as opinions of those bloggers. I am a gullible guy
J. However I will not necessarily take business decisions (or even personal buying decisions) based only on one or two blog posts, and I don’t think that means I don’t trust blogs. It is definitely helpful when bloggers disclose posts to be sponsored posts. I follow
RWW and they talk about their sponsors all the time. They also talk about other products and I trust them to provide a balanced view in their product reviews.
An interesting thing to note in the Forrester report is that people trust emails from people they know but don’t trust as much the social networking profiles from people they know. Hmmm…
As part of judging entries for the Brandon Hall Awards this year, I encountered an elearning module that attempted to teach the company’s sales people its new service orientation and its service oriented products. The elearning module was very well made, full of videos (actually it was practically a ‘video-based-training’ disguised as elearning) with very well written script and extremely professional production quality. The script and production quality was so good that I would have been proud of the product if it had been made by my team.
I went through the modules as a learner, something I hadn’t done in a while. I was probably the right audience, not in terms of being part of that company, but perhaps with about the same experience as the intended audience. So after being impressed with the first few video clippings I got down to actually attempting learning from it. And man was I unhappy going through the training. The training included lots of case studies and ‘role plays’ (the wrong and right way to sell videos). As an intended audience, I felt bad and felt the training was demeaning my intelligence and showed what I might be doing right now (remember I was trying to be in the actual learner’s shoes) in very bad light. Something like this might work in a controlled classroom environment where a trained instructor would be able to provoke me and respond to my reactions to the content being taught, and I might also have a healthy debate with others in the class. However using the elearning module, I felt the module was preaching to the choir and insulting the learner’s intelligence. Since it had no facilitation of a trainer and there were no other peers to learn from or debate with, I felt very bad about the content.
Which makes me wonder – can self-paced asynchronous elearning be a good tool for attempting to change behaviour? Is elearning better suited for certain types of audiences when attempting to do this? Are there some content areas that should just be dealt with in a classroom? Or perhaps is there a better way to teach behaviour change using elearning?
