Facebook banned for council staff

[Power Lunch Club]

Hello,

Saw this interesting article...and it's true enough...people waste time on it.

One of the reasons i came off it, was the time wasted on...reading up on what other folks where up to.

BBC NEWS | England | Hampshire | Facebook banned for council staff

 

[Former Member 1]

Makes perfect sense to me.... And now, almost on a daily basis, people are telling me how they've given up on this nonsense and are increasingly banishing it from their workplaces...

People have been sold the idea that these sites are some sort of 'new wave' in terms of interaction and communication. They're not. They were designed by childish people FOR childish people. And much as there is and should be a child in all of us work is for grown-ups...

Unless your business really is addressing the essentially frivolous side of life, then these things are just a distraction.

 

[looby]

I love Facebook. I of course agree that there is no need for everyone at the city council to be able to use it during office hours but I do also think that social networking sites (such as SBF) are important for businesses. They give us an online presence and not only that, but having them means that you and your business appear more in search engines and other sites.

I read an article yesterday that gave examples of people who made friends because of shared interests discussed on blogs and websites like twitter and facebook. Even internet dating has become much more accepted and less stigmatised than it used to be - meeting online has a become a new way of life and I reckon if used well it be just as good for business as a good networking breakfast!

Not only that, but I also think that we should be able to mix work and pleasure and if logging onto facebook every now and then to look at some drunken pictures from the last staff party is a no no then where do we draw the line? What's the point of a team building exercise if the team aren't allowed to have any fun at work?

This is of course coming from a girl who uses facebook about 110 times a day so maybe my opinion is a little biased...!

 

[Mike Lewis]

Matt,

I agree 100 percent with what you said.

What amuses me is the way people kid themselves that this is some kind of marketing tool. Personally, I'd rather spend my marketing time handing out leaflets on Waverley Bridge.

Mike

 

[Former Member 1]

I read an article yesterday that gave examples of people who made friends because of shared interests discussed on blogs and websites like twitter and facebook. Even internet dating has become much more accepted and less stigmatised than it used to be - meeting online has a become a new way of life and I reckon if used well it be just as good for business as a good networking breakfast!

:001_unsure: I'll be honest with you... When someone stands in front of me telling me about his exploits of facebook or twitter he may as well be wearing a Hamley's Cowboy Outfit and tellling me about the fort him and his mates have built in the woods at the edge of his housing estate....

Online, offline at networking breakfasts or over beer of an evening.I'll happily talk business with anyone with a serious mind and intent. But I've go a kid to feed and clothe and house. It's one thing (and not a particularly good thing) that business eats into my social time. But just plain unacceptable for trivia to be eating into the time allocated for earning the means to support my daughter...

That's NOT to say work should be a dull drudgerous experience. I don't expect people to be galley slaves. But just as I'd be pretty intolerant of someone who spent big chunks of the working day betting on horses, filing their nails, agonising over the football results or reading "Heat" magazine.... So it is with Twitter (especially!) and Facebook....

Social media is nothing new; must be a dozen or more years since I first logged onto a forum of this sort of format and maybe 20 years since dialup BBSs first started to be easily reachable...

Yes; sites such as SBF are important; but you know one thing that sets this forum apart from many others? It's oh-so-quiet!

I could point you to other 'business' forums which are fielding 60-70 posts per hour... Largely from complete fantasists, the deluded or the flim flam artists that feed off them. They pop up here every now and again. But this forum is well moderated, so they don't last long....

What sets SBF apart, what makes it a valuable resource is what it's not...

And I'll take some of your leaflets Mike and hand them out in Buchanan street if you take some of mine up Waverley....

Now THAT'S networking!

 

[Power Lunch Club]

What's the point of a team building exercise if the team aren't allowed to have any fun at work?

This is of course coming from a girl who uses facebook about 110 times a day so maybe my opinion is a little biased...!

The question of fun doesn't apply here...this is abuse in some case by staff (albeit unitentionally)....they are paid to work, not surf unproductively on the web.

It's not the staff money that is wasted, it's the companies or the organisations.

Get off Facebook until lunchtime Stevie!!! :thumbup:

 

[stugster]

but I also think that we should be able to mix work and pleasure and if logging onto facebook every now and then

I completely agree with this, but then you have a high proportion of those workers who just take the p*ss. They'll spend most, if not all of their time on Facebook.

Then you've got the folks who can't time manage and fail to realise they've just spent an hour or two wading through mindless posts about how someone fell over on the way home from a nightclub.

Don't get me wrong, I used to do that. What scared me the most was actually looking at the stats to see just how much of my day was WASTED on Facebook.

Now that I'm aware of it, I use Facebook in moderation