Social networking applications and websites

Many organisations ban or block their employees’ access to and use of social networking websites like Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn in order to reduce security risks or stop the employees ‘wasting company time’. But have you thought about a different approach: allowing – even encouraging – such access but MANAGING the process through effective planning and goal setting, monitoring and measurement, assessment and evaluation. After all, many of your (younger?) employees are already spending time on social networking sites every day, so why not nudge them into using them to the benefit of the organisation?

For example, a new application called Ning allows users – individuals or organisations – to set up their own ‘private’ social networks. So you could have an internal organisational social network, working like LinkedIn or Facebook, which only your staff would have access to. Train your people in what to do then let them loose, sending private person-to-person messages, and posting less confidential messages to others’ walls, with linked attachments. Automatically, the software will tell their friends and contacts what they are doing in a similar way to how they half-hear other employees’ telephone conversations in an open-plan workplace. At a stroke, some of the need for monthly reporting could just fade away.

If you are braver, you could enable the use of Facebook and LinkedIn by workers. Just make sure you train them how to set their security at maximum: vital with the increasing risk of identity theft. And make sure there’s a shared understanding of what is meant by ‘Commercial in Confidence’ and ‘Personnel in Confidence’. You may even need a new policy on this.

Twitter’s a bit different of course. It’s best thought of as a mini Blog, broadcasting to anyone who’ll listen. But Twitter also allows some levels of security. And many of the best and most interesting Twits are already Twittering in, from and about their work.

So, you don’t have to automatically ban new technologies in work. You can research them, trial them and MANAGE them!