Ed Brill

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1. 1  Dan the-technocrat.blogspot.com | 4/4/2006 3:09:22 PM

   make that 'open, available and logged'. with a clear company policy on how much personal business is too much, and the resources to enforce the policy, you don't run into these issues. wide-open and unwatched is asking for a lot of non-productivity. wide-open and with the knowledge that abuses will be dealt with is enabling.

   (watching to be done autonomously, of course. this way the machine rats out the worker, not the 'internet police in I')

1. 2  Dan the-technocrat.blogspot.com | 4/4/2006 3:10:38 PM

   erm, that is: 'internet police in IS'. (I wasn't talking metaphorically about my inner internet policeman)

1. 3  Mike "5 Things Wrong with SharePoint" Drips http://forevervoyaging.blogspot.com | 4/4/2006 6:45:54 PM

   Too many companies want to be Big Brother and treat their employees like children. Unfortunately it seems that many people prefer for the company to make decisions for them. I was on a recent contract where the Internet filtering program used by the organization filtered out the site for International Women's Day as "an advocacy group".

   You have 3 types of workers: The Do-Bees that are productive on one end of the bell curve, the Don't-Bees on the other end of the bell curve, and the Dull-Bees in the middle. Most of us can figure out where we and our co-workers fall on the productivity curve.

   I continually run into the entire gauntlet of locked down to unlocked down environments as a consultant. I find the unlocked down way the best for productivity where everyone takes responsibility for being an adult.

   No way I could ever find myself becoming a corporate sheep.

1. 4  Christopher Byrne http://www.controlscaddy.com/ | 4/4/2006 10:15:27 PM

   Not to be a broken record, but it all comes down to assessment of risk, setting of acceptable use policies, education, communication and enforcement. Education can work wonders...

   In general, I fall on the side of no public IM usage, and if it is not allowed, it is enforced consistently. The temptation to use it for business without logging and archiving puts companies at risk, and I will be discussing this in my email compliance sessions at the Advisor Summit in Las Vegas next week.

   See

1. 5  Christopher Byrne http://www.controlscaddy.com/ | 4/4/2006 10:19:59 PM

   Ooops, I forgot the link: { Link }

1. 6  Ian Randall http://www.emsoft.com.au | 4/5/2006 3:15:31 AM

   Also the dividing line between "business" and "personal" is becoming blurred everyday by technology and cultural changes such mobile phones, laptops, PDA's, email and Blogs etc.

   All of which extend our concept of "working hours" beyond the traditional 9am-5pm time slots.

   However, it's pradictable that organizations try to protect themselves by building fortress walls and introduce draconian policies and technology lockdowns, but in the end it's too late.

   The horse has already bolted...

1. 7  Wild Bill http://www.billbuchan.com | 4/5/2006 5:07:52 AM

   Well, I hate to be the voice of dissent here (no, its not deliberate trolling) but there are *some* work environments where outside communications are locked down for some pretty compelling work reasons.

   In the City (or Wall Street) for instance, where regulatory concerns dictate that all eMail/IM traffic may be required to be produced. Chinese walls have to be maintained. Or at certain government installations, where "secure" means secure.

   Another one is on drilling rigs around the time of oil discovery - a leaked comment from an offshore worker might be construed as "insider dealing" - for instance, with the smaller oil producers. Every new well causes a share price spike..

   So whilst it is a royal PITA as an external consultant visiting these sites and trying to maintain a normal connected existence, whilst on site I have to obey site rules.

   Another very good reason for lockdown is that in some sites I've been at, the IM/personal eMail route was proven to be yet another virus vector.

   And no - we're not talking about "knowlegeable" technology sector workers here - were' talking about normal office workers - some of whom have not got the message yet about firewalls, etc. It would seem that internet-based IM and eMail is no longer the preserve of the knowlegable and aware consumer.

   Now *some* environments I've worked at actually had an open ADSL connection and wireless network for itinerant workers to use - as long as the laptop was never connected to their network. In my humble opinion, that option worked best, where it was allowed by business..

   ---* Bill

1. 8  Philip Storry http://www.not-so-rapid.com | 4/5/2006 5:08:35 AM

   I believe in give and take on this part.

   I have a Blackberry. Work calls me on it when there are problems. I frequently work more hours than I'm contracted to. I'm often in early or late to do maintenance - even if it's just a simple like creating an ODBC connection (*shudders*).

   So as far as I'm concerned, I've given there. If I choose to take a break from work at 11:00, drop by Ed's blog and make a comment - that's them giving back.

   I wouldn't advocate the allowance of the use of personal IM or mail for business purposes. Ever. That's a legislative/liability minefield. But I don't see why the basic use of personal email should be blocked.

   I'd shy away from personal IM at work, though - it's too disruptive, and may be giving too much. But that's just my personal opinion.

1. 9  Volker Weber http://vowe.net | 4/5/2006 6:09:24 AM

   This is a complicated matter. Employees use public services for a number of reasons. Some of them are related to dysfunctional IT systems, some of them are just private matters. I think Sametime 7.5 is a good example how you can fix both issues.

   Problem: Employees want to reach out to their spouse/their kids. Peripheral vision: Are they present, are they ok, can I just send a message that I will be late. Can kids tell their dad they passed a test with flying colors. Just little things.

   Solution today: Dad keeps a copy of AIM around. If company looks down his desktop, he uses a service like meebo.com.

   Solution tomorrow: Company throws a link to AOL and dad can see his family on Sametime.

   Problem: People need to collaborate across organizational boundaries.

   Solution: You chose a service that can be reached by everyone. Lowest common denominator: email. IBMs suggestion to get everyone on the same directory does not really work.

1. 10  Karen  | 4/5/2006 7:41:18 AM

   We are a manufacturing company, publicly traded, with $1.2 billion in sales and 4,000 employees (U.S. and Canada). We are a Notes/Domino shop. We won't be using the free internet services discussed here anytime soon. It boils down what Christopher and Bill talked about - (SOX) compliance and virus/hacker control/prevention. We don't have the IT size or money to build what is required for that.

   Of course IBM is going to give uber-access to its employees - IBM IS technology. That doesn't speak to IBM customers who aren't, imo. Our technology supports a business process that revolves around a plant floor and number of units built and shipped. AOL IM (and the required security layer wrapped around it) isn't the first thing that comes to mind at the Board of Directors' table or in budget discussions. (shrug)

1. 11  Tim Brown  | 4/5/2006 8:52:56 AM

   I'm sorry. The only valid argument I see here is a productivity one. IBM has as much SOX and Security related issues on the line as any company. You can lock down IM and email if it helps the compliance folks sleep at night, but the potential for conducting business on other non-logged systems (are we recording all business calls in & out? how about personal cell phones from the lobby or parking garage?) will always exist.

1. 12  Sean Burgess http://www.phigsaidwhat.com/ | 4/5/2006 9:55:51 AM

   @4 Chris, the problem I have with a complete termination of all public IM is that I often use the medium to connect with external resources when solving issues. But I also use it for personal reasons, like to check in with the wife and kids. In fact, I use the phone more for personal reasons than for business reasons, but I don't see that being taken away from me any time soon. And I don't think it's fair to only allow certain people access to public IM so I would lose an important tool for me to do my job.

   The other arguement I have with restrictions on IM, email, and phone usage is that there is no longer a clear deliniation between work time and personal time. Since everyone has a crackberry now, when does the work day end and the family and personal time begin. If I am working on my laptop over an EVDO connection on the way to and from work, do I need to spend 8 hours in the office or does that time count as time worked? If I have to take time away from my weekend or vacation to fix another emergency issue or just keep an eye on a troublesome server, do I get credit for that time also? How many hours of work is a salaried person expected to work a week when not actually in the office?

   If a company continually limits the amount of personal contact that can be done while in the office, it can expect workers to start limiting the amount of work contact they do while on personal time. The pendulum swings both ways. The more personal stuff that employees can accomplish at work, the more inclined they will be to stay at work and to work while they are off-hours.

   The companies that are consistently listed as the best places to work are the ones that don't limit such things and the employees are more willing to work hard and long for. Sure there are going to be some bad apples that abuse such perks, but punishing the masses for those few bad apples is the best way I know to drive down morale.

   Sean---

1. 13  Charles Robinson  | 4/5/2006 10:43:09 AM

   We have a corporate culture that has historically abused everything. After a spate of long distance calls that were over $1K each we implemented account codes. After someone ran nearly 2,000 copies on our color copier at $0.75 each, we put codes on that too. After the same user continually infected our network with a worm from his webmail, we installed filters and also blocked webmail.

   In some environments you can trust the adults to act like adults, in others you're giving them way too much credit.

1. 14  Karen  | 4/5/2006 11:20:04 AM

   @11 - it's not about whether we can, it's about whether we have the resources. Like it or not, there's a food chain, and free internet services aren't high up there just yet.

   I don't believe anyone reading this is naive enough to think that it's only a matter of a free download and your company is good to go.

   Example... we looked into this article on The View

   { Link }

   titled, "Secure Remote Access to Your Domino Infrastructure". Result? It was determined that we don't have enough tech resources to build and maintain this reverse proxy setup. We don't have a full Apache server and we don't have an available tech to configure it for us. We're a relatively small IT shop in a mid-sized manufacturing market.

   Now I'm not a tech or an administrator, so I can't speak to that decision, so don't start spouting off how easy, or cheap, or whatever it'd be. The answer was, no resources right now. Again, I see it as compliance that costs money, not the service itself. We could throw open a port, and our auditors would cry foul, or we could build a compliant environment, but we don't have the manpower or money available.

   Do I see the benefits Ed and others are talking about? Of course. All of us in the IT department would LOVE to have these tools. But when it comes down to resources, someone has to choose, and free internet services aren't it right now. We have to live with that.

1. 15  Samuel deHuszar Allen  | 4/6/2006 7:01:58 PM

   I can't find the specific post right now, but on Kathy Sierra's blog ({ Link } she talks at great lengths about how pausing and doing something non-work related is when the brain starts to process stuff you were working on 10 minutes ago.

   So while yes, there are abuses, locking people out of the opportunity to let their brain catch up can rob staff of that potential A-HA! moment where the subconscious brain made all the interesting connections that the conscious brain was struggling with.

   Employers think they're increasing productivity by shackling their employees to their desks but usually, what their doing is reducing the quality of work, and increasing the stress levels of the staff which is a sure fire way to reduce productivity.

   There's the old adage about people doing their best thinking on the can, but I think that has less to do with location then it does with distance from actual engagement of "work".

   Many of the most successful that in some way intersects with tech let their employees do all kinds of crazy non-work related stuff. One of my friends does animation with Midway Games, and they have a whole arcade room on-site for their staff. The people at Pixar are allowed (apparently) to skateboard around the premises. Google allows their staff time out of the week to work on whatever projects they are inspired by (which I hear is how Picasa came to be). And yet there is still such a push to squeeze the last drop out of the people companies rely on to make the gears turn.

   Sad really.

1. 16  Christopher Byrne http://www.controlscaddy.com/ | 4/7/2006 9:03:28 AM

   @15 - Did not Google acquire Picasa?

1. 17  Charles Robinson  | 4/7/2006 2:00:09 PM

   @15 - I agree to a point. I worked for some places that would do things like Midway, but I think it requires strong management who knows when to reign the chaos back in. At the place I worked it got really out of hand and the people who needed a more orderly environment were basically run out.

   @16 - Yes, they did: { Link }