Comments on: Don't Ban Facebook!

By: Ron Shevlin

Ron Shevlin — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 17:00:24 +0000

Andy: Thanks for commenting (and sorry for the slow reply to your comment). You and I are in complete agreement about the futility of banning Facebook.

By: Andy Michaels

Andy Michaels — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 06:39:42 +0000

I don’t think banning Facebook would do the trick, nor is banning any other social medium for that fact. Employees who are challenged and well-motivated do not need this kind of policy.

By: uberVU - social comments

uberVU - social comments — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 11:18:11 +0000

Social comments and analytics for this post…

This post was mentioned on Twitter by rshevlin: My two cents on the Facebook ban question: http://bit.ly/20bQlz...

By: paul amisano

paul amisano — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 15:43:19 +0000

jeez, whats next? banning access to snarky marketing blogs?

By: Twitter Trackbacks for Don’t Ban Facebook! « Marketing Tea Party by Ron Shevlin [marketingteaparty.com] on Topsy.com

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 14:22:03 +0000

[...] Don’t Ban Facebook! « Marketing Tea Party by Ron Shevlin marketingteaparty.com/2009/10/25/dont-ban-facebook – view page – cached A research study found that firms that let their employees access Facebook at work lose an average of 1.5% in total employee productivity. Nearly half of the employees studied used Facebook during… (Read more)A research study found that firms that let their employees access Facebook at work lose an average of 1.5% in total employee productivity. Nearly half of the employees studied used Facebook during work hours (shocking!) — some as much as 2 hours per day at work. The researchers concluded that: (Read less) — From the page [...]

By: Ron Shevlin

Ron Shevlin — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 13:16:21 +0000

@mrsmcj: Couldn’t agree more. Bandwidth issues is one thing. Firms banning Facebook in the name of “recovering lost productivity” is another though. My company blocks access to a few music sites. I can understand and (reluctantly) accept that. But banning a FB would be a questionable mover.

Chris: You make a great point about the trust factor. My bet is that firms that ban FB DON’T EVEN REALIZE that they’re sending a signal of mistrust. In fact, I don’t think there’s a whole lot of analysis going on in the decision to ban FB. I think the process is “our employees have no legitimate reason to use FB at work, so let’s block it. Done deal.”

I bet we could find a company that blocks its employees from accessing FB at work…and yet does a fair degree of advertising on the site. Now if every other firm blocked access, wouldn’t that diminish the potential marketing success for firms advertising on the site?

By: Chris Ryan

Chris Ryan — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 17:00:17 +0000

I think the most important issue here is trust. Once you start banning anything, you’re beginning to treat your employees like untrustworthy worker drones. They’ll respond accordingly, and the atmosphere at the office will probably alter significantly.

For what it’s worth, I have all but “banned” Facebook for myself. The signal-to-noise ratio is very poor, and there’s a lot more interesting material on the web than which distant acquaintance’s cat happens to be sick. Seems only a step above WoW in terms of pointless addictions.

By: mrsmcj

mrsmcj — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 16:18:39 +0000

Here’s another “should do”– address the issue directly with the time wasters instead of applying a blanket policy that unnecessarily punishes everyone for the actions of a random few. Bandwidth became an issue for us as we’re getting more reliant on ASPs for work-related tasks. Many of these folks had no idea leaving their Gmail and favorite websites open all day in the background reduced our overall bandwidth. So companies shouldn’t assume the worst right off the bat. Educate, give folks a chance to clean up their act and then go get ‘em.

And I applaud item #2.

By: Matt Davis

Matt Davis — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 15:14:59 +0000

Firms should spend more time constructing effective performance metrics than they do worrying about lost productivity to social networking sites. By setting clear, and lofty, performance expectations, you allow employees to discipline themselves.

By: William Azaroff

William Azaroff — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 15:11:50 +0000

Just yank the ethernet cable. that really should do the trick.