I’d like to seek help / advice / guidance on what the existing membership is doing about the following:

• Which companies allow / block social networking sites such as Facebook and why


• What policies do companies have in place to manage / control social networking (examples would be great - saves reinventing the wheel if you are happy to share)


• Who sees a real business benefit from this activity and how is this measured & reported


• Facebook can be used in 2 ways – is there any opinion on these, especially the latter?


• - Personal – non business


• - Business - special interest groups / company presence


• General comments about managing the unmanageable - wiki, blogs, twitter - in a business environment.

It's really down to the Head of Department or senior manager whether these sites should be accessed by staff.

There are many reasons to allow them, for instance 'LinkedIn' is useful for business contacts, and Facebook is good for recruiting (whether the latter is morally right or wrong is irrelevant, the fact is, it's there and employers will use it).

The role of IT should be to work with senior management to decide whether staff should be allowed access, and then advise management if they are aware of misuse. On that basis, the IT Department should have the necessary equipment to control and monitor access, for instance, a 'Network Box' device would be appropriate. You may find this White Paper useful... www.network-box.co.uk/sites/default/file..._social_networks.pdf

Colin

As a company we have decided to block access to all these sites, all the time.

Hi Trevor,

We basically make use of the facilities of our internet filtering appliance ( Bloxx ). Depending on what AD group you are in you either get no access to internet ( & therefore no access to social networking ), work & 'lunch' access ( users are allowed to access internet inc social networking from 7:30 am to 8:30am, midday to 2:00 pm, & 5:30pm to 7:30pm, outside of those hours limited to a number of approved business sites ), or full access.

Our view is by letting our users become more famlier with the web, it is increasing the capabilities of the workforce & so on the whole benefits us. If we do have people that abuse the privelidges then they get warned & then blocked.

Hope that helps