Businesses Fear Social Networks Waste Time

I was reading an article today about how many companies are worried about Social Networking and how much time and productivity is lost due to the new communication standards of Social Networking.

I think that when asked about social networking, people think about Facebook and Myspace and Twitter, etc. Although these are the most widely used in some ways, I don't think that it has surpassed email. It seems that businesses fear how much productivity is lost due to these sites but fail to look at other types of social networking. Which, by the way, is not a new concept; it has just been brought to a new level.

The beginning of social networking can be traced back to the herding days of the nomads. Once two tribes figured out when the other tribe would come to the watering hole with their sheep, the other tribe made it a goal to meet them there to exchange information, knowledge, stories, etc. Does this sound familiar? Is this not what we all are doing today, but without the flock?

Fast forward to the revolution of people working in offices, how much time was spent at the watering hole called the break room or the affirmable "Water Cooler". We as humans have this at part of our make up as a person, and we gravitate towards these moments daily. Whether it is passing someone in the hall and asking how their weekend was to hanging out in the break room a couple extra minutes to chat with someone.

In the article that I was reading the author made a good point about the productivity lost due to time spent on the phone, surfing the internet and sending emails that are not "work related". While all this is true and we all do this from time to time, who is to say how much productivity is truly lost.

What I find most interesting is several items:

• My company would love for me to talk about their product or services when I am at home blogging, on social networking sites, twittering, etc.
• Most large companies that are worried about losing such productivity actually hire people to do that one very thing. They don't want the average Joe on the social networking sites, but rather have dedicated teams devoted to creating a buzz about a particular product geared all around social networking.
• As companies try to limit the access to sites such as Facebook or MySpace, people are resilient and will find a way to do it anyhow.

I work for a large corporation and we actually received a company wide email asking us to go home and "using our own computer and internet connection" to blog about the company, etc. I personally found this very rude and insulting. If you want me to spend my time talking about the company, products and services offered, and then I need to be on the clock and getting paid. Just like they would not want me to Facebook or Twitter my friends to let them know how my day is going, I want some separation from work when I go home. In my opinion they need to get on the stick and understand that I am not the marketing director getting paid $500,000+ a year and it is not my job to advertise or market the products or services offered. That is someone else's job.

The next part that I find interesting is that while company "X" wants me to go home and blog about such and such technology, or tell others on Facebook, MySpace and the like. The company has a team dedicated to doing just this aspect of marketing. So as you told my department when we asked for additional personnel to cover the workload...We don't need to have un-necessary duplication of employees assigned to the same workload. You should be able to complete the work with the resources given. Well so it is with your hired social networking group. I am not getting paid to help them, and they should have an adequate number of people to get the job done without me.

Finally I think it humorous that the more companies try to limit certain aspects of technology people find a way around. For example, at my work we cannot get to the web site Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, and a number of others. But with the help of a Blackberry, I can get to all these sites and post information. So which takes more time away from productivity? Me adding a quick update on Facebook using a regular keyboard and mouse or my having to use a Blackberry keyboard and little screen to write on? We are going to find a way, might as well allow it to some extent. One never knows, if you let us have a little freedom, we might even talk about the product or services that we offer, and might find a way to help do some marketing.