Social Networking

Does Social Networking have a place in the workplace? If so, how should it be controlled, assuming it should even be controlled? Can a case be made that it saves money, promotes creativity, or otherwise benefits the corporation to a degree larger than the cost?

All tough questions, very little empirical data. Let's take a look at these issues.

First off, a few assumptions:

• One's primary business is not associated with or a direct beneficiary of social networking. In other words, I'd fully expect companies like Facebook to be 'eating their own dog food.
• Whatever policy a firm adopts, the ground rules are communicated and consistent. Any other approach is fool-hardy and lawsuit-friendly.
• Technology infrastructure is deployed that is appropriate. For example, relabeling e-mail or instant messaging as your 'social network' is not only naive but ineffective.
  

Social Networking at Work?
Social networking provides an ability to connect that might otherwise not exist. It generally allows these connections to develop in a manner that is 'easier' than other mechanisms. The question of whether Social Networking should exist in the workplace is really a bad question - it depends on what you hope to get out of it. If the intent is to simply foster socialization I would say no, existing external social networking easily addresses that goal. If your goal to is strengthen customer relationships, enhance collaboration, or increase transparency, then I'd be hard pressed to see any valid philsophical counter-arguments given the state of modern companies with 21st century systems capabilities.

Should Social Networking be controlled?
A tougher question. Per the previous assumptions, one is already imposing a degree of control. What about 'moderation', auditing, or any restriction of content and connections? Once you start layering on policies and procedures you end up reducing the content of your social networking. Which should be a good thing, it's hard to justify the value of a prolonged discussion or information exchange regarding last Friday's after-work beer blast. One simple 'control' would be the elimination of any anonymous or non-attributable content contributions. Beyond that, surfacing infrastructure considerations might be the next layer of 'control'. I'm thinking of background throttling of storage/bandwidth.

Does Social Networking create more benefit than cost?
The crux of the business decision. At this point, I have never seen or heard of any true analysis that shows a recognizable financial benefit associated with internally hosted social network capabilities. In other words, "NO". Why would an individual, with a free choice, choose to subject themselves to a corporate version of Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn when the alternatives provide more flexibility and personal value? On the other side, why would a company subject itself to the pains of records management associated with this content? Lawyers doing discovery would love to have access to what is often a trove of misdoings, non-professional, or even merely off-topic unsubstantiated content.

Anyway, that's where I am now on this issue. Definitely a superficial take at this point, but willing to be proven wrong.