The New Water Cooler

According to Forbes.com, social media in the workplace is on the rise. Forbes.com references a recent Trend Micro study that suggests that social Web use in the workplace has risen from 19% to 24% in spite of the fact that 54% of CIOS prohibit social media use in the office. The larger the U.S. company, according to Forbes, the less likely the company is to allow employees social media access. Bloggers are buzzing.

Earlier this year CNN posed the question: social media at work – bane or boon? While many companies quoted in the article expressed concern about security breaches and diminished productivity, several executives suggested that social media in the workplace increased productivity, improved employee morale, and enhanced customer service.

Social media changes workplace interaction. It’s a brave new world – and it is happening really fast. The new generation of workers entering the labor force communicates in a fundamentally different way from their parents. Smart businesses can use social networking to manage off-site employee relationships and recruit new employees. Even the Pentagon and the State Department are green-lighting social network use.

What’s your company’s stance on social media? Does it have a place inside your cubicles or is it just for marketing to your consumers?

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 14th, 2010 at 3:10 pm. It is filed under Social Media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

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Brad Parsons says:

July 15, 2010 at 1:13 pm

I work with a number of clients that are making use of social media, both for marketing purposes and, sometimes inadvertently, for internal purposes.

On the internal side of things, it’s easier and quicker to snap a photo with a mobile phone and post it to a social network than it is to get out the digital camera, snap the shot, bring it to your computer and send the 5mb picture to your coworkers. This is useful when setting up trade show booths, snapping photos of billboards or for other visual things you might want feedback or recognition for. I can also understand how it might boost morale. There’s often no time in a work day to discuss the weekend with coworkers, but they can slowly learn about you by watching what you post to Facebook. If you want a strong, reliable team I believe it’s important to encourage building those relationships outside of the workplace.