Get off Facebook and get back to work
Aparna Kalra -
Tuesday, August 04, 2009 2:19 PM
Have colleagues who spend more time on Facebook than on work? Well, IBM has issued gentle guidelines to its employees that say 'Don't forget your day job'.
This has led to a lively debate on whether use of social media -- Facebook/Twitter/ I would include Gtalk -- at the workplace affects productivity. Tim O'Reilly, credited with coining Web 2.0 (read about him and this new English term here), who I follow on Twitter, has a guest blogger who says companies should have clear guidelines on productivity and then leave employees alone.
If they want to tweet, watch holiday pictures of their friends and take inane quizzes on how well their friends know them and how well they know their friends, so be it. The blogger also argues that employees have enough distractions, such as coffee and cigarette breaks, and social networking is another one of them.
But what about those who Twitter, (and sometimes Facebook), help work better. A colleague in marketing has business contacts on Facebook who help him strike deals, and I follow at least one regular source on Twitter. A few students I have interviewed are on my Facebook.
So, social media actually increases productivity for some, right?