This is part 3 of a 3-part interview with Natasha D’Souza, founder of Virtual EyeSee one of the up-and-coming social media strategy companies in Ottawa. If you haven’t already, check out parts 1 (Social media and the economy) and 2 (Understanding social media relationships).
Jamie:
There are a number of projects (changecamp.ca, digitalgov.ca) in the nascent stages of development which seek to have a more transparent and accessible government with a particular focus on open source and social media technologies. How would you like to see the Canadian government invest in these concepts and technologies over the next 12 – 18 months?
Natasha:
Recent market research indicated that the place where people spend a lot of their time online are Microsoft, Google and Facebook. In order for any organization, government or otherwise, to get their message across to their audience, they have to participate in the discussions in these places.
In the next 12-18 months the Canadian government needs to think about what they want to do and then figure out the various social media tools that they could use to achieve these goals. They will have to make the shift form pushing the message out to participating in the discussion. So bottom line is not to block these sites at work but make them accessible to all employees.
Jamie:
I agree there is a positive value in having all levels of government (or an organization) having access to these tools. However, there is also a potential for lost productivity or negative exposure if individuals aren’t mindful of the impact their actions have on the larger community. Regardless of whether they ban access to these tools or not, they should recognize that they can no longer expect to control the flow of information as they have done in the past with traditional media.
It used to be a reasonable expectation for the bulk of communications to be delivered from a public relations / marketing department (read: in a consistent “on-message” manner). Today, with cell phone cameras everywhere and the potential for videos to go viral, everyone must remember that anything can be captured and distributed to everyone / everywhere almost instantaneously. What once might have been a candid remark by a politician to score points with a particular demographic, can now be captured and repurposed as an attack ad against every other demographic. Everyone should always remember that the second you hit send or publish, that content has been released onto the internet – forever.
A big thanks to Natasha for taking the time to contribute. If your organization is interested in learning more about how to tap the positive powers of social media, you should get in touch with her through Virtual Eye See.
2 Comments
Jamie thanks for the interview. In regards to the point of blocking these sites at work I am totally against it.
When an individual is hired by an organization it’s because they are the best fit for the job. They do sign the appropriate documents that highlight the companies policies. It is understood that will not misuse email nor spend all day walking around and talking to people aimlessly. We all know that people use work place email for personal use and do spend some time socializing at work. This is ok, as long as the employee meets their deadlines. So if this is ok then why are these sites blocked? After all they are just different types of communication tools.
What an organization needs is to develop a Corporate Communications Policy for Social Media, that’s the right way to go about this issue. Here are some more details on an article I recently read about this.
http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/0a121e/creating_a_social
With this is place then organizations don’t need to worry about loss of productivity. They might be surprised to find out that these sites are a great resource for information, communication and most importantly collaboration.
The problem is that it only takes a handful of people to ruin it for the masses – probably the same individuals whose actions lead some employers to remove Solitaire from their corporate installations. When you factor in the potential for a “Dominos Pizza incident”, it’s understandable why companies make the choice they do.
However, I do agree with you that blocking the sites is not the right solution. I could probably identify more than a dozen examples from my own experience where social media (Twitter or Digg in particular) has made me a more efficient / knowledgeable worker.