The secret is to bang the rocks together guys

"We'll be saying a big hello to all intelligent lifeforms everywhere and to everyone else out there, the secret is to bang the rocks together guys . . ." (Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy)

I ran into a GenX friend of mine yesterday and she was lamenting the time wasted by her staff on social network sites like Facebook, Twitter etc. and how they had locked out access to these sites.

She's kidding right?

When I asked her if they were getting their work done (prior to this futile and draconian measure being implemented) she did admit that they seemed to be "getting the job done". Demonstrating on my iPhone, I pointed out to her that all smartphones allow access to the Net and many have applications specifically designed to facilitate social networking. As counterintuitive as it might feel, let them have access; in fact encourage it, but have set guidelines on usage - time, content etc. Most importantly and as always communicate the expectation of work outputs.

Many people, especially BYTs, believe that the lines between work life and social life have been blurred and the progressive manager should see that if such blurring results in a happier and more productive employee it's a good thing!

The advent of the Internet in the workplace from the mid-90s (web 1.0) was pretty mismanaged in terms of staff usage. Let's not mismanage Web 2.0 - user generated content such as social networking - in the same way. Hopefully by the time Web 3.0 has been established the issue of mismanagement will be a thing of the past... just like the "rock bangers"

Harry