Do public social networks have a place in government offices?
Categorised under: Collaboration, Enterprise 2.0
Craig Thomler asks: do public social networks have a place in government offices? To quote:
With these mediums we put appropriate policies in place, sometimes train people on acceptable conduct and rely on trusting individuals to do the right thing, to act in their own self-interest (continued employment) and back these up with potential legal options (scaling up from disciplinary action) to ensure usage is appropriately managed.
Should government agencies treat public social networks differently to other mediums, as people are behaving in a less formal manner but may still be indirectly representing the organisation?
Tags: Collaboration, social networking
James Robertson is the Managing Director of 
One Comment:
Working within an organisation which is under constant scrutiny from the general public and media as I do (I work at RailCorp), I can understand its policy of not allowing access to social networking sites (including online forums). It would not be incongruous for a staff member to unwittingly write something that is then reported on the front page of the media the next day. “Trusting” idividuals puts a lot of onus on them. With 14,000+ staff members it would be nigh impossible to train all of them on “acceptable conduct” in the online environment because this often relies on the context – and many comments can be taken out of context.
That said, as a professional working in the online world I’m starting to feel like a luddite because I do not have access to social networking sites at work. And I get annoyed that I have to do this kind of thing at home in my own time (like now on sunny Sunday morning) to keep ahead of ‘the game’ and stay relevant.