Don't Ban Facebook at Work, Researchers Advise
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Sure, cyberslackers waste time on social network sites, but prohibition may be overreaction.
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When a popular blogger revealed that Facebook had banned his account, the Web erupted in speculative chatter. But where should they really be pointing fingers?
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Employers should allow workers to use the social networking site Facebook during their lunchbreaks, the Trade Union Congress (TUC) said Thursday.
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One in five adults worldwide say they have visited social networking sites, according to a study released last week.
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With the Facebook phenomenon continuing to capture the imagination of consumers, broadcast television networks, and a number of ISVs, SuccessFactors, a talent-management SaaS (software as a service) provider, unveiled ULTRA, the latest version of its performance and talent management suite, which now links to Facebook profiles.At the end of last year, WorkLight, a Web 2.0 software developer, launched WorkBook, the actual Facebook application that will be used by WorkLight to facilitate corporate communications and knowledge sharing in a secure environment.Last week, many television viewers watched as the ABC network partnered with Facebook in its coverage of the New Hampshire primary.Now it is SuccessFactors' turn. The company is a SaaS powerhouse in talent management, and it has more than 2 million subscribers in 156 countries.SuccessFactors is using Facebook to allow a richer employee profile that goes beyond the structured data that is typically captured in a HCM (human capital management) service, according to Jim Holinchek, a senior analyst with Gartner.Rob Bernstein, global vice president of product marketing and product management at SuccessFactors, agrees with Holinchek?s assessment. ?It also blurs the line between enterprise and consumer by linking between employee profiles and Facebook profiles,? added Bernstein.From a management perspective, the biggest change in SuccessFactors? service probably comes from ULTRA?s new integrated capabilities. No matter where in the suite an HR or department manager is working, he or she can switch to other suite components.?In the past, managers would have to switch between applicant tracking systems, learning management and performance management, for example; now ULTRA has a single footprint,? said Bernstein.The ULTRA release also includes a new drag-and-drop UI, as well as the ability for users to generate their own content such as to-do lists. It also allows HR or facilities managers to plot and move locations of employees and equipment on a floor plan.Tagging will allow users to add to their own profile, said Bernstein,. For example, if an employee speaks a foreign language, they can be tagged with that information to enhance collaboration and, ultimately, company productivity.The integration of Facebook into ULTRA is a relatively new phenomenon, said Holinchek, and while it is true that the formal organizational structure does not necessarily reflect how work gets done, Holincheck said customers and vendors are still working to understand cases where this type of integration makes sense.?Customers are trying to understand what the ROI is from the investment,? said Holinchek.The Ultra release is compatible with Flex, Flash, and AJAX.ULTRA is shipping now.
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Facebook wants to make the data its members enter into the social network&#39;s profiles portable, so that they can move that data to other online services if they want, the company&#39;s CEO said Wednesday.That Facebook doesn&#39;t let them do this today is &quot;a flaw in the system&quot; and something the company wants to fix, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco.&quot;It&#39;s the users&#39; data. We want to [make it portable.] That&#39;s the goal,&quot; he said during a keynote speech in which he fielded questions from moderator and conference chair John Battelle and attendees.However, when pressed to provide a timetable for when Facebook might do this, Zuckerberg refrained from making a deadline commitment. &quot;I don&#39;t know,&quot; he said.The massive response from outside developers who have built, to date, about 6,000 applications for Facebook has been &quot;incredibly humbling,&quot; he said.Because&#160;Facebook chose to open up the platform&#160;at an early stage of its development, instead of refining the program internally for several years, the company is learning as it goes along, he said.That is partly the reason why the wording on the terms of service for developers may be read as giving too much power to Facebook over the third-party applications on its platform.However, Zuckerberg said Facebook isn&#39;t interested in &quot;yanking&quot; popular applications so that it can build them itself.While Facebook has to reserve the right to build whatever application it deems core to its social network, it doesn&#39;t plan to trample on its developers and steal their thunder.&quot;It wouldn&#39;t be good for us if we did that,&quot; he said.Opened to external developers in May, the platform is seen by many as containing well-designed tools and offering developers generous revenue opportunities, despite the terms of service language that Battelle highlighted and that has concerned developers who are investing time and money in creating Facebook applications.Still, Facebook has already had to step in and curb the behavior of some applications which, designed with self-promotion features intended to spur their adoption, annoyed users with unsolicited e-mails and intrusive message displays.Zuckerberg said it may take many years for the Facebook platform to reach a level of maturity, and in the meantime, the company will work hard to continually improve and refine it.He remained tight-lipped when asked about rumors that the company is in the latter stages of securing financing from a major Internet company, like Google or Microsoft.&quot;How&#39;s the financing going?&quot; Battelle asked him. &quot;Very well. We&#39;re almost all wrapped up,&quot; Zuckerberg answered, declining further comment.Facebook will likely more than double its staff of 300 to about 700 in the coming year, growth that Zuckerberg acknowledged is intense. Many of the new hires are referred by employees, he said.Asked if Facebook is contemplating hiring an experienced CEO to run the company, as fast-growing startups often do, Zuckerberg said that the focus is on &quot;developing a really good team,&quot; in part because there aren&#39;t many seasoned CEOs experienced in social networking.Zuckerberg also suggested that the company may be developing its own advertising platform, but declined to offer details, keeping mum when asked if the ad platform will syndicate ads outside of the Facebook site, thus becoming a potential competitor to networks from Google, Yahoo and others.Asked about the investigations from some U.S. attorneys general offices into Facebook&#39;s operations and policies regarding objectionable content and the presence of sexual predators among its members, Zuckerberg said the social network gives users very granular control over what data they share, how they share it and with whom.However, he acknowledged that he&#39;s not very familiar with how the company complies with civil and criminal investigation subpoenas.Founded in 2004, Facebook&#39;s popularity has been ballooning for the past year or so. Its user ranks have increased to 47 million active users today from 12 million in December. Over half of its active members return to the site daily.Web 2.0 Summit ends Friday.&#160;
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By Anonymous  Without a computer-use policy in place, employees are apt to use the Internet to conduct personal affairs at work, thus hampering workplace productivity and exposing your organization to liability.
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When the social discovery site turns members' most trivial actions into unfolding "News Feeds," users rebel, and the company races to quiet their anger. Both sides learn a hard lesson about the illusory nature of online privacy. Commentary by Bruce Schneier.
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According to a survey, sites such as Facebook could be costing more than Â£130m a day in lost productivity.
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Companies wondering how to deal with the growing use at work of social networking sites should go easy on limiting workers' time online, says Britain's Trades Union Congress.
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Do your employees have a "Crackberry" problem? Their compulsive BlackBerry monitoring could backfire on you: Checking e-mail via BlackBerry gives employees a sense of control but leads to more stress, according to a recent study from the MIT Sloan School of Management that examined BlackBerry use and organizational behavior. And this problem starts at the top.
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WorkLight unveiled a tool that will allow corporate employees to use Facebook at work, while keeping private company information confidential.
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Blog: A recent study from Harvard University showed that the majority of teens and young adults on the Internet aren't reading the news, and many of them aren't going to find it on social networks.
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Employees who go online to check on fantasy football teams can cost companies money in lost productivity, but banning the practice could hurt worker morale, according to a study by outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas.
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By ANICK JESDANUN  NEW YORK - Users of the online hangout Facebook revolted and won as the site agreed Friday to let them turn off a new feature that drew privacy complaints because it lets others easily see changes made to their personal profile pages.
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Facebook users should not worry that personal details will be searchable on the net, says the social network.
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Researchers learn that social network users are willing to sell their personal data for site features.