Facebook contact and AllFacebook.com’s Nick O’Neill was on NPR last week talking about the popular social networking site. This is not a recap but you can hear the show here and see the discussion board on Facebook here.
Part of that discussion was the issue of what role Facebook plays in the workplace. It was brought up that Facebook is now banned in some workplace and is being blamed as the culprit for loss productivity.
There was one caller who said that they use Facebook as an internal communications network, but it’s kind of disappointing that most of the listeners who chimed in the discussion board saw it as a hindrance to productivity.
Another caller pointed out that if an organization feels that there is a need to put an official ban against social networking sites, it is an indication that the organization has hired the wrong employees because they cannot be trusted to do the jobs they were hired to do.
Do I use Facebook? Yes. I am logged on to it during the work day with two separate accounts (my “personal” account and my profile as the “official” company rep, the one where I can answer without the disclaimer that says it’s my personal opinion and not the company’s…) in two different browsers. Am I wasting time there? I’ll tell you exactly what I do on Facebook during my work day and you can be the judge.
I join groups and troll discussion boards looking for ideas and best practices for projects that I’m currently working on.
I connect with experts in my field and read their feeds for posts, links and updates. While my colleagues pay to hear experts speak at conferences once or twice a year, I make an effort to read what the experts read (posted links), go in the same discussions they participate in and connect to the same people they’re connecting to. A lot of the ideas I bring to work come from listening. Is this a waste of time?
I work for a ATR International, a recruiting firm so I tend to take the hottest reqs we’re working on and post them on Facebook and using the Twitter, Jaiku, Marketplace, and “My Company’s Hiring” apps, I share them with my network, regardless if they are subscribed to Twitter or Jaiku. I am not bombarded with useless responses but I get decent inquiries, which I pass on to my recruiting colleagues. We spend hundreds and thousands of dollars advertising in job boards. But with just a few clicks I reach a highly targeted audience, at no other cost than the minimal time I spend doing it.
So I’m writing content to be later used as resources for our clients and I post little bits and pieces of it around Facebook. Using the same applications plus the WordPress app, my network gets a view of what my company is about. Those who are being particularly helpful offer more insight, which in turn improve upon whatever it is I’m working on. Those who read, I hope, gets educated about the services my employer offers. And with those third party apps, the reach goes outside of Facebook.
I joined the Lunch20 group on Facebook so that I can get the invites automatically and not have to keep checking the Lunch20 site. Lunch20 is how I connect and converse with other professionals face to face and I’ve increased my professional network just by attending these lunches. I make it a point to go to them as long as they’re within reasonable distance.
Yeah you’ll see some pics of my children in there and you’ll see me connected to some family members as well, much like you’ll see pictures on my cube at work.
So no. I don’t think I’m wasting my time using Facebook and I sure hope my boss doesn’t think that way. It’s one thing to spend your time poking and vampire biting and recruiting zombie armies. It’s really all about what it is that you do on Facebook that matters. It’s kinda sad that people can’t see past “the cool” and see it as a robust tool for collaboration, knowledge-sharing and even productivity.
Other posts on this:
Stowe Boyd’s Facebook is bankrupting our business! Shut it down! Shut it down!
Money quote: “if Facebook cost your business “dear,” then you shouldn’t really be in business. If you can’t figure out how to leverage any social network for your own business, and the tendencies of your employees to enjoy them, then time to rethink your strategies.”
Stow Boyd’s post: Kent Newsome on the Conventional Wisdom About Facebook.
“In the final analysis, Facebook and its cousins are inevitably going to be business tools, because business people are too smart to not adopt better technologies to help them get their work done. In a hyperconnected world, getting things done increasingly means harnessing the network, not just doing piecework. “
Nick Dynice makes an excellent point about Facebook’s potential in the classroom.
“Imagine what types of learning apps could be built for the Facebook F8 platform? School book publishers could change their strategy to include their lessons as Facebook apps (well, one can dream). Students can be ranked against each other in quizzes in real time. Classrooms across the world that are studying a given subject at the same time could engage with each other in real time. It will happen, but probably not soon. The old guard needs to retire.”
