Social Networking at Work

There's been a lot of talk lately about the potential uses of social media within large organizations, at the same time as we're hearing about nervous companies shutting down access to blogs and sites like Facebook for fear this kind of activity compromises security, leads to drops in productivity and abuses network bandwidth.

Kind of reminds me about the old joke: Why don't Baptists have sex standing up? Because it might lead to dancing.

The point is that organizations that are too prudish about the new social media risk losing out on its potential benefits. This recent article from TechNewsWorld gives a great overview about how organizations are starting to figure out how to use the new tools, and that the corporate world is further along on this track than one might think.

Big outfits like IBM, Morgan Stanley and AAR (an aviation services company) are installing social networking software and customizing it to suit their business needs. I hear that the market for this kind of enterprise software is going to exceed $US 400 million this year and it promises to be a fast-growing segment.

The idea is that if companies put their own social networks in place, they can control them more. As IT guy Rich Lyons, president and founder of Lyons Consulting Group, puts it in the TNW article, "If it's the property of your company you can monitor the content...Its much harder to monitor what someone's doing on MySpace, but if your company has installed it, it's much easier. Plus, you can focus on how it's going to help your business. You can set up different forums for discussion and actually use it to foster communication but yet drive efficiency at the same time."

That's an IT consultant talking; it's pretty self-serving because Mr Lyons helps his clients get these kinds of internal social networks up and running. But also reflects the thinking of many businesses and it's a realistic, low-risk approach to entering the world of social media.

But I dunno. Like my friend Shel Holtz, I'm more of a libertarian when it comes to this kind of thing. It makes the most sense for companies to not only install their own social networking solutions, but to also give employees the freedom to surf where they want. This approach recognizes that people take work home all the time, so they should be able to do a little personal networking at work, and also that there are lots of good business reasons for being able to have unfettered access to the Web.

Because, you never know, it could lead to dancing.