Just caught a blog entry by Roo Reynolds from IBM about some UK regional authorities (in this case Kent County Council) blocking access to Facebook. Amid the plethora of stats indicating lost productivity / enhanced networking its hard to see any bans as being nothings else but a reason for management to exert what they think is good for the rest. If you are at all involved within an organisations marketing and sales or at all interested or involved in communications internally or externally you have every reason to use and benefit from Facebook and other social networking sites. This is the reason I fully support Shel Holtz campaign Stop Blocking. The arguments will carry on and we all know the way people are and some will take the p**s, although I am firmly in the camp that says it is in corporations best interests for its employees to be involved and engaged. An IT based blanket ban is I believe unreasonable – better that it be encouraged or questioned as a function of management. When posed with the question ‘how is this helping you with your work’ it should be obvious if one can present or fails produce plausible reasons.
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