Last night, one of our local tv stations ran a story about how a bank and a software/web design company have different approaches to social media.
Social NOTworking
Are web surfers more or less productive?
FORT WAYNE, Ind. (WANE) - How many friends do you have? Or followers? What's your status? How many "tweets" did you send out? It's lingo that's become part of our everyday conversations.
More than 200 million people use Facebook. More than 18 million are on Twitter. It's no surprise, then, that some of those people are logging on - while on the job.
In fact, some studies estimate as many as 75% of employees who have a Facebook account use it during work hours.
Now, business owners and managers are taking what some consider drastic measures to keep their workers on task.
"Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn. Those kind of sites are blocked," says Star Financial Bank Chief Information Officer Ralph Marcuccilli.
Marcuccilli says the bank restricts access to any non-business related websites for a couple of reasons. "First and foremost is security. That's the reason we block those sites - to protect our customers' information and our systems. Then there are also productivity reasons."
Research conducted by the Internet security company SurfControl estimates workers who keep a close eye on their Facebook page cost their employers as much as four billion dollars a year.
An Ohio State University study showed that college students who use Facebook spend less time studying and have lower grades than those who don't use it.
So clearly there's a negative link between social networking sites and productivity, right?
Not so fast, says Dr. Brent Coker, from the University of Melbourne in Australia.
His team set out to answer one simple question: how surfing the internet for fun at work impacted people's productivity. "What we found was that those who surfed the Internet for fun while at work were, in fact, nine percent more productive than those who were not able to surf the Internet for fun while at work," explains Coker.
Coker says says most workdays are divided into what he calls mini-tasks. He likens Internet use to a coffee break - a good thing for workers. "If we're not given the chance to take a break between these mini-tasks, our concentration slides down."
It's a balance local business owner TK Herman tries to strike with his employees. "We use social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook for our own internal marketing efforts. We encourage our employees to participate on those kind of sites," Herman says.
Herman runs Aptera , a software and web design firm in downtown Fort Wayne. He says his employees have full access to the Internet and that no one's ever abused the privilege. In many cases, workers have embraced the technology to the benefit of the company.
"We update Twitter and Facebook on a regular basis. We've got over 400 followers on our Facebook fan page. The way we use it is to communicate with our clients, our prospective employees, just anyone who wants to know what's happening at Aptera," says Herman.
Though Aptera and Star Financial are in completely different industries - and approach social networking at work very differently - both make sure their employees understand that the work day doesn't end when you leave the building.
"You know, we don't want people going to sites like MySpace and posting things that may look like they're representing the bank when it's really a personal use and a personal site," says CIO Marcuccilli.
TK Herman agrees. "I think people we have working for Aptera understand that. They understand that they're being viewed by the outside world as not only themselves but also representative of our company." Sphere: Related Content
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