Companies are banning social networking websites on their corporate internet, lots of research is currently going on social behavior in these websites, lots of hype on privacy issues and so much noise around social computing. I read a ET article that has gone to the level of claiming productivity loss due to social networking.
with a retweet and fshare at the bottom! 🙂
After reading that article I realized that those claims apply to simple email too. Should organizations go ahead and ban emails too?
Many senior executives in organizations feel that these Web 2.0 communication tools are useless and reduce productivity. Come on la! Rethink! Loss of productivity and other reasons cited are due to organization culture and improper management. Capgemini, an industry leader in consulting sees the other way around. These views on social computing as seen by senior executives are due to
- senior managers are driving business through the use of proven procedural tools
- their work is sent to them in formats that they understand
- the number of their direct reports is finite
- their place of work is usually static and desk-based
- the effort to learn about a situation is normally delegated
- results are delivered to them in a manner that they have requested and understand.
In this situation, there is little direct value in ad hoc collaboration that social networking tools provide. By contrast, managers and workers lower in the organization often do not work at the same desk; have to deal with a mixture of events and issues that do not fit into existing organizational procedures. Indeed, it is their job to figure out how where, how, and with whom they should work to find the right ficapgemninit for the procedures and above all, this happens in a constantly dynamic and changing environment. The Web 1.0 model of storing, searching, and using content helps to an extent. However, what is really required is the Web 2.0 model of finding people with knowledge and expertise before identifying the relevant content. Email has been and continues to be used for this purpose. However, the results are evident: too many emails can clog the system; too many are irrelevant to work and knowledge; and a lot of frustration and wasted time are the consequences.
Web 1.0 showed how search engines could be used to find the content required. Then, RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds can be used to reliably deliver the selected content as and when it is updated. On the other hand, Web 2.0 social computing uses social networks to “store” the characteristics of people and their interests and knowledge, so that we can find the right person or group of people relevant to the issue. Micro blogging, which is what Twitter provides, can be seen as the equivalent of an RSS feed. Micro blogging allows you to select the individuals that you wish to “follow” in terms of what they are doing and what they know. Examples of this might be colleagues working on a project, key people with specialized activities, or any other definition of what seems relevant. On micro blogs, individuals post frequent, short updates about their activities to which other individuals can respond if they want to know more or can broadcast action requests and more.
In short, the faster and more frequent the activities and business challenges, the less formal the procedures supply the first stage of answers. Also, it is less likely that content or case studies will be perfectly captured for reuse and, typically , a response from the right person with the right experience and expertise to provide guidance will be slow. Therefore, the reason staff and operational managers adopt social networking becomes clearer. However, at the same time, the inability to understand the exact issues being addressed and the manner of resolving these using an unknown medium and method remains a barrier for senior managers. Senior managers may find that a more formal approach to adopting social computing by setting out definable business goals may be more acceptable and understandable. Indeed, they are right to be wary of the possibility of unforeseen consequences and damage to the enterprise resulting from an ad hoc uptake of social computing.
In see the way Capgemini sees Social Computing. In the Indian context this may be seen differently primarily because employees are treated as workers in a manufacturing organization and not as professionals. The top management is led by people who believe they are the only ones who run the company and expect employees to do what they want without any reasoning. This trend is bound to continue in India as the need for innovation is less and the cost of resources are still less to seek efficient business processes/practices to minimize cost. The problem of discussion should be why companies are not able to set definitive business goals and align people around these goals a problem no one dares to talk about. As far as people meet these goals, protect company information and integrity and abide by the laws of the land why should one care how much time one spends on the net? Come on la! We live in a democratic country! In fact WORK to our generation is not only 8 hours. We live our work 24 hrs and its a part of our life. We are a generation working hard to rise the Nation’s economy and we deserve to be seen with respect.
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