Social networks and the corporate workplace

Insightful analysis by consultants Steve Taylor and Jim Metzler, plus links to the latest WAN news headlines

Let's start with Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, LinkedIn, Blogger, LiveJournal, and Flickr. These are just a few of the social networks that, depending on your perspective, may be either invading or enhancing your corporate communications. In an effort to begin quantifying the impact and policies surrounding these services, the Webtorials Editorial/Analyst Division is undertaking a major study, and you're invited to participate. 

Slideshow: 12 tips for safe social networking

We anticipate that this will be quite revealing, and also that we will see a very wide variation in responses. It also reminds us of similar situations that we’ve seen before. Within the lifetime of this column, we saw the birth of instant messaging. And this may be "déjà vu all over again."

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Let's start with Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, LinkedIn, Blogger, LiveJournal, and Flickr. These are just a few of the social networks that, depending on your perspective, may be either invading or enhancing your corporate communications. In an effort to begin quantifying the impact and policies surrounding these services, the Webtorials Editorial/Analyst Division is undertaking a major study, and you're invited to participate. 

Slideshow: 12 tips for safe social networking

We anticipate that this will be quite revealing, and also that we will see a very wide variation in responses. It also reminds us of similar situations that we’ve seen before. Within the lifetime of this column, we saw the birth of instant messaging. And this may be "déjà vu all over again."

Of course, IM started as a social networking tool among the "kids," especially with AOL. And there was considerable concern as to whether this would ever be an appropriate medium for business. Now IM is an integral part of unified communications, and we're lost without the ability to IM as a "sidebar" during conference calls.

Some of the issues that we'll be exploring are:
- How much of your site usage is business related?
- How much time do you spend at home and at work engaged in social media?
- Does your company have a policy concerning the use of social media at work? If so, how is that policy enforced?
- What do you see as the business value of social media?
- Do you segregate your business and personal social media identities?
- To what extent do you see social networks as evolving to be an integral component of unified communications?

We're eagerly awaiting your responses, and we invite you to think about the above issues and to respond to the questionnaire here.

Read more about lans & wans in Network World's LANs & WANs section.

Steve Taylor is president of Distributed Networking Associates and publisher/editor-in-chief of Webtorials. Jim Metzler is vice president of Ashton, Metzler & Associates.