Nov 14 2007
Enterprise Two-Dot-No
Shel Holtz submitted a great piece on an emerging trend — the increasing number of businesses that are blocking employee access to 2.0 services.
According to surveys from Barracuda Networks, two-thirds of companies plan to restrict access to the Net over the next year, an increase of nearly 23% over this year. About half of the company’s customers already block access to social networking sites (25% block just MySpace, 6.3% block just Facebook, and 19.3% block both).
At the same time, notes Shel, many businesses are investing in social media platforms for collaboration “inside the firewall.”
What should we make of this “split-personality” disorder? Says Shel: “At some point, companies are going to have to come to terms with the fact that networks cross organizational boundaries and that open access?governed by clearly-communicated policies?will produce benefits that far outweigh the costs and risks.” I agree. But there’s something else here. While the business benefits of many internally facing tools are fairly well known — or better known — the benefits of all things 2.0 are not. And in the meantime, the onus is on vendors that provide the externally-facing stuff.
It’s a tough sell, when many of these services are not designed for work. But it doesn’t mean they don’t have value. In my opinion, those organizations that do block access do so at their own peril. If you move toward using these tools now, you will become proficient at using them by the time most competing companies begin working with them. You would be surprised how well this will teach people not only the ins-and-outs of the tools but more importantly, the values of listening and participation!
