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What IT Pre-Sales Engineers Really Think About b2b Content Marketing.
Video 14 of 18: Social Media Censorship
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An edited transcript of the conversation is provided below.
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Video 14: Edited Transcript
This question about social media refers to anecdotal reports from some IT people I know working in the Asia-PAcific region, Matthew.
They're reporting that Twitter, Facebook, even LinkedIn, are now blocked by corporate IT during work hours.
If this practice is widespread, then a lot of the hoo-hah made by b2b social media consultants about engaging with people during their work day, is going to be difficult.
(Unless they're on a smartphone or something. But)
I'm interested in your thoughts on that.
Do you see the censorship of social media at work to be like King Canute trying to stop the tide from coming in?>br> Perhaps many people using twitter at work are just messing around and not really getting their jobs done?
Mark, was it about twenty years ago that the movie Jurassic Park came out?
One of the things I remember about the dinosaurs was that "nature will find a way." In other words, they made all the dinosaurs female or male, so now they know how to change their gender, and create baby dinosaurs.
Social Media: You Can't Stop This...
Well, users will always find a way.
You can block, you can restrict, you can do everything you want to do to keep them from doing things but if they feel that they need something to do their job, they're going to figure out how to do it and they're going to get it done.
Of course, there are people that will figure out ways to get around things, just basically goof off, and not do their job.
There's an easy fix for that.
There's an easy fix for a lot of this stuff.
I think it's really (about) corporations having a rule and saying you're an adult, I hired you, I trust you to do your job.
If you do your job, it's fine. If you don't do your job, we'll have to fire you.
I've been on the corporate IT side in several places where I was having to deal with web filtering and things like that.
I can assure you that I didn't want to do that.
I did not want to play 'Internet cop'.
I had better things to do.
I always hated doing that stuff.
I understand why companies do that. They want to keep their people productive. But, you know, did you hire adults or did you hire children?
I mean, to me, it's pretty straightforward.
I gotta trust you to do your job. And if using Twitter helps you to do your job, then that's great. If you're not doing your job and I'm a good manager, I'm gonna know. And I'm gonna address that.
Mark, you can block these tools. That's fine. But with the prevalence of smart phones, as you mentioned, it's pretty hard to do that.
You can't, at least it's not like that in America, you can't sell cell-phone jammers in your buildings, and shut out people from getting access to things they want.
Where Twitter Adds Value, Smart Employers Do Not Deny
And if you look at things like Twitter from the way I do, in terms of the value it brings, you know, why would my employer deny me that?
I'm far more productive using Twitter in my day-to-day job from a technical capacity than I would be if every unknown answer has to come from google.
Like every engineer, I use google a lot, but there are certain things that a search engine can't tell me that a human can.
So, I'm of the opinion that corporations can do what they want, that's their right, but blocking a lot of these sites without figuring out how your employees want to use them, you know, if you can figure that out, ask, what do you want to use this for?
And if they can give you good answers then consider letting them do that but if they can't give you a good answer then, fine, then that's your right as a company not to allow them to do that.
And also their right to go and work somewhere else.
Again, you know, I'm not for blocking these sites but I understand why companies do it and, 'to each, their own'.
Yes, Matthew. Thank you for that answer. It's actually a good lead in to another question, which I'll save for another video, about the millennials, the younger folks coming up. But let me just pause at this point.
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