In this past week's issue of the Boston Business Journal, an article called "Businesses set social boundaries for networking sites",written by Lisa Van Der Pool , caught my eye. Why? Because about a year ago, I posed the question to many HR professionals and they were completely ignorant about social networking and blogging in general. If you would like to refresh your memory, click here. In fact, no one that I asked had even thought about a policy around Social Networking behavior.
It is no surprise that the charge is being led by a law form. They are in the process of writing guidelines for LinkedIn for its 130 attorneys. The article goes on to say that the firm isn't as concerned about Facebook or MySpace (I'd bet they would be surprised to learn how many of their associates are also part of Facebook and MySpace). The spokesperson goes on to say that "Attorneys are governed by rules of confidentiality. It's easy to forget that when you're involved in some Internet connections which seem informal." What do you think that means???
According to the article, 22 percent of companies have outright banned the use of social networking sites. Then, of course, there is the complete opposite going on. Arnold Worldwide (A leading advertising firm here in Boston) has created their own "Arnold Fan Club" site within FaceBook. Instead of worrying about what their 23 year old associates will say, they are just going to let it happen. Their associate director of marketing states "'I'm hoping to use it as a communication vehicle". Again, what do you think that means???
Whatever your corporate policy is, people are going to use Social Networking Sites.
I don't think that we'll ever be able to put that Jeanie back in the proverbial bottle! So, I think, we have to take the best from both of the examples above. Social Networking is just going to happen. What we can do, however, is issue corporate guidelines about what is put on a personal page vs. what goes on a professional page.
And at the end of the day, we need to remind people that the sites are public. If you don't want your boss or future employer to know something about you, then don't even think about posting it online.
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