A recent article in the Australian Financial Review. (Online subscriber can read it here afr.com.au) Discussed the growing corporate concern over staff productivity and the impact by online social media. And some savvy executives even projected the likely failure of a service with 35million users. Anyway the following rant is my response to such naivety.
TWITTER RANT BEGINS
Can someone explain to me how Twitter or Facebook is different from a desk phone and or mobile phone or dare i say it e-mail? Are they not just tools for communicating with friends, colleagues, professional networks and families. The stuff I used to be able to do before I had to work back to 7pm in a corner of the office not talking to anyone, like solitary confinement?
In fact, aren’t these tools profoundly more efficient at delivering a single message to multiple people at more convenient times? Seriously if I dialled up 10 people to organise something, to share my opinion, or to advise of my location and time of arrival, I would spend at least 5 minutes with each. Now that would be a waste of time! I mean, does my boss want me to sit at my desk and instead use e-mail to draft laborious and delicately crafted notes target at individuals, with appropriate CC: and BCC: on them?
Surely my boss wants me to use tools that create efficient and effective methods of communication. Hell I am typing 140 charecters, getting news headlines in hyper speed and he/she wants me to what….stop wasting my time? (idiot)
So far the only time saving I can see coming, is the time I save by not training him/her on what twitter is and how it works. And or time on educating him/her on what open comuncation networks, not driven by closed power networks, can achieve by sharing. But then he/she wouldn’t appreciate that. And I know why…
Because he was too busy organising this mornings coffee run and a chat around the newspaper, or water cooler? Now he/she was too busy smoking 6 cigarettes x 10 minutes = 1hour per day. Which is near 30 days a year wasted smoking…oh sorry they were meetings, because someone went with you! Yeah right.
RANT RELIEF KICKS IN
Ok, I’ll calm down. I’ll be more constructive. The madness of all of this, is that its not about employees, productivity and effectiveness. Its about how you as the manager have engaged your staff, so that they wouldn’t seek out methods for filling time with….well stuff? You see the world is changing. Really it is. And organisations, like governements, need to realise that people are more powerful in their unity than ever before – because their voice is no longer aggreagted and filtered by media, it’s actually a voice as powerful as the media.
They need to realise that these tools are great development and networking tools. They allow people to pack more into their personal and work lives. Sourcing and satisfying answers to work and pesonal questions. Like search does. It’s information seeking.
So, this is not about twitter, myspace or facebook or any of the 16bn wesbites in the world. This is about poor management and poor staff engagement. Its about a lack of company vision, mission and goals, that the staff actually buy into. And the fact that you are blocking websites, or calling a ‘stop to this’ says as much about the relationship and care you have of your staff as it does for the Iranian Government and the Chinese government. There is no need to be afraid unless your trying to abuse and take advantage? If your intentions are true, then you have nothing to be concerned with. And if your power is under threat, how you respond now, will determine the length of time you manage to outperform, grow and develop. Or just stay in power, or dare i say it, survive.
This is a time for leadership, not a time to defend and stick your head in the sand. We are moving from the industrial age to the information age, and the opportunities are boundless. If you envied the great oil barrons (Rockefeller) , the great manufacturers (Ford) then its time to seize your own day! We are merely at the dawn of the bio tech and information age, and if you want to have an impact on the world you have as much chance as anyone! But true leaders will achieve it better than anyone else. Just get on board and hold on!
