Waste of Time?

Thanks to socialmedia@smartbrief.com for the link to Forbes' story on social media as wasting billions in the UK.
The survey they cite mentions 40 minutes per week per employee on personal social networking. Unfortunately the benefits are not so easy to quantify and may exceed the costs.
The helpful point in the story is about the need for social guidelines at companies rather than bans. I would recommend a step further and say the policy should be one of appropriate encouragement of social media use at work.

P.S. Dissertation all done. To be posted soon.

Sun's Blog Rules

Another interest story from Ragan was the interview with Terry "tMac" McKenzie, senior director of employee communications at Sun. Sun is of course a leader in employee blogging starting with the COO, Jonathan Schwartz and the well-known policy. A couple of topics in the interview struck me as particularly interesting.
Terry summarized the policy as
1. Be interesting -- including be controversial but responsible.
2. Don't be stupid. Follow SEC rules, don't slander, etc. (Is that like "Don't be evil"?)
3. If you don't follow #2, you are on your own if you get sued.
"We are all about sharing and open systems," she said.
In the same e-newsletter, Ragan offers a three hour social media boot camp. If you think that is audacious or on the other hand, too long, just watch the interview with Terry that covers a lot of the ground in just a few minutes.
Another part of the interview dealt with the disappointment and posts related to Sun's not making a best places to work ranking. Many of these rankings depend on an employee survey, a subject of research interest with me so I will follow up. Maybe Sun has some of its own surveys beyond the proprietary one used for the best places ranking. The best places survey is known to have a significant trust component.
BTW, I learned from Vida Killian -- Thank you! -- that Dell does not have such surveys with respect to social media impact.