With the rush of organisations banning access to social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace, I can’t help wonder if there’s more than a little bit of double-standards at work. Let’s say for a moment that a worker participated on LinkedIn as a way of forming a better network, would they find this acceptable? If so why would this form of networking be acceptable and not the Facebook kind?
Simply because a social networking site is fun, does that automatically make it unproductive? And does the fun diminish the quality of the relationship? I’m a member of both LinkedIn and Facebook and can say that, as a professional, I get little out of the former, and plenty out of the latter.
It’s time for businesses to consider the longer term ramifications of too much control around SN.
