The Tool Box

I finally have a new tool for the box, following a long trip overseas. I should add that they don’t seem to have any tools in Asia, hence the break.

Mark Bregman is the CTO of Symantec - a data security and management company. At a Sydney conference this week he stated “Facebook is becoming a critical business tool”. Read the report and see if you can find any actual examples of how. All I can see is the usual rubbish about how employees “expect to use” and “are inclined to”. Neither of these phrases can be used to begin a sentence indicating critical business use, but in fact illustrate the ongoing challenge of how to manage your employees (read, make them work for their salary).

Mark, you are the perfect example of why those of us in the engine room don’t often respect those of you who sit up on the top deck smoking cigars and hypothesizing.

The Age - Symantec execs encourage using Facebook at work

Should workers be allowed access to Facebook in the office?

Image courtesy UK Daily Mail

Don’t you think the answer to this is obvious?  Of course I shall give any of you that have not heard of Facebook the benefit of the doubt, but seriously, if you are reading this blog you will have heard of Facebook.  And if you’ve heard of it you should know that it’s the most common social networking service in the Western world today.

The reason I am blogging today about Facebook is that there is an increasingly large number of tools out there making noises about how Facebook should be allowed in the workplace.  Guess which of those in the picture above are tools?

Having used Facebook extensively for nearly a year I can categorically state that there is absolutely no business benefit in it’s current incarnation.  The only reason people want it at work is because they believe they have a right to socialise whilst at work.  And they can’t imagine missing out on what their friends might be up to for 5 minutes!  Thank goodness Twittr hasn’t yet caught on in Australia!!!

Yes, you have a right to socialise during the day - but not on work time or using work resources.  You may be ALLOWED to do so, but you do not have a right, and nor should you be even asking for that right.

Some companies will allow you these benefits because they trust you, and want you to feel that they are a modern and open organisation - read “a great place to work”, but the reality is that if you are the kind of employee who needs to be permanently in touch with all your friends, then do you really think you have what it takes to be a valuable employee within the typical workplace?  If you do, you are a tool.  I wouldn’t employ a tool unless I was hammering a nail.  Would you?