While away, I saw an article in the London Evening Standard that talked about blocking Facebook. Although ill researched and full of hyperbole, the article made one pertinent point: How else might the tedium of some people’s work be relieved to good effect?
It’s easy to forget that for many people, work is dreary and dull. Having access to the fun of Facebook could be just the thing to get those same people thinking differently about their work. But then it seems social media blocking generally has hit new lows. From Andy Piper:
So the blocking thing is something that affects me every day. One example – my blog is my CV. When I’m going to a new customer, and they want to know a bit about me, I point them here. Unfortunately, I recently found that some businesses block *.wordpress.com as a matter of course. That’s even more annoying when I’m trying to recommend that a customer reads some troubleshooting article on the Hursley on WMQ blog, for instance.
As a consultant, it is interesting to see how my different customers address the issue. The one that popped up today is that Dopplr is blocked under the category of “Personals and Datingâ€. Right. Clearly I’m trying to setup a date for next week, not share my travel plans.
Andy’s experience reads like something out of 1984. the best tip I can give Andy is to carry a GRPS access dongle with the laptop and use that rather than be subject to some nutcase’s idea of appropriate access. The situation is such that Shel Holtz has set up a campaign for responsible access to social media sites. The moniker reads:
Companies everywhere are blocking employee access to the Net, fueled by questionable research and irresponsible pronouncements of self-serving individuals and organizations. This site is designed to serve as a hub information resource for those who believe the benefits of providing access far outweigh the risks.
There are a few rays of enlightened sunshine. Jeremy Newman, managing partner at BDO says:
I must admit that I am not sure how effective this will be at increasing staff productivity – which is presumably the intended effect. To be consistent I guess they also need to ban personal telephone calls and emails during office hours.
Personally I prefer to trust people.
What’s so hard about that?
Technorati Tags: facebook, social media
