Category: Social Networking and Web 2.0

Online Social Networking: Is It a Productivity Bust or Boon?

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I recently had an article on Faceblocking published in the March 2009 issue of Law Practice magazine: Online Social Networking: Is It a Productivity Bust or Boon for Law Firms?

Steve Matthews and I conducted an informal poll to see if we could confirm that law firms were blocking access to social networking sites. Our theory was proven in the results. (You can download the raw survey data (.xls) if you want to see the underlying data.)

Of those responding to the survey, 45% said their firms blocked access to social networking sites. The three most blocked sites: Facebook, MySpace and YouTube. Those are also 3 of the top 10 most visited sites on the web. We also published some of written comments from the survey respondents: Speaking Out on Social Networking.

The survey is very unscientific. Steve and I thought that it would be useful to get some data about what law firms are doing about access to social networking sites. I was surprised that 45% of firms blocked access to some social networking sites. Perhaps those working at firms subject to blocking were more likely to respond to the survey. I was also surprised that the 45% blocking percentage was fairly consistent across firm size. So small law firms were just as likely to block access as big firms.

I conducted two surveys of the summer associates at my old law firm, the vast majority went to Facebook at least once a day. It seems to me that if you are recruiting young workers, you should not cut off one of the ways they communicate. Deacons published a survey indicating that an employer’s policy regarding on-line social networking would influence a significant percentage of workers’ decision to join one employer over another.

Although I am an advocate of open access, I do so with the caveat that you need to let the people in your organization know what is proper use and to monitor their compliance. I fear that many firms use blockage as their policy. That may have worked 10 years ago, but not today. You can just as easily access these sites from iPhone or blackberry as you can from a firm computer. Blocking does not stop the bad behavior that it is trying to prevent. Blocking merely changes the access method.

There is a fair amount of research, the most prominent of which are two reports from McKinsey, showing that access to social networks at work, coupled with a good policy results in a more engaged, more motivated and potentially more innovative workplace. You should set sensible policies and set reasonable expectations for your employees. Social networking sites at their core are communications platform. You should be able to adapt your policies on email, confidentiality, marketing and similar policies to easily include social networking sites. If not, those other policies probably need updating anyhow.

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Twitter Good or Bad?

Most people are up in the air about what to do with Twitter. I thought I would put together two contrasting views.

First up, Evan Williams on how Twitter’s spectacular growth is being driven by unexpected uses:

And then Jon Stewart on why the Twitter Frenzy is silly:


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I Twitter (@DougCornelius), do you?

Twitter in the Workplace

twitter_buttonShould you allow your employees to use Twitter?

Are they already using Twitter?

The answer to both questions is probably YES.

Your employees are probably already using Twitter and they do not need your computer network for access. They can access Twitter by text messages, an iPhone, a blackberry or any other smartphone.

Personally, I have been using Twitter for a while and find it a great way to stay connected with the news, compliance issues and the other compliance related people using Twitter. ( See @DougCornelius on Twitter)

Daniel Schwartz lays out the thinking very nicely in Twitter in the Workplace: Why Employers Need to Be Cautious, Not Afraid:

“Next, I should clarify that I don’t disagree with the underlying premise that is advanced by some that posts on Twitter can get an employer into trouble. Of course that’s true.  But so can a letter to an editor in your local newspaper, or a notable call to a radio talk show or causing a scene at a presentation.

You don’t see advice that we ought to cut off mail service, or remove phones from employees’ offices, or stop allowing employees to attend seminars and presentations.  Rather, we outline a set of expectations as to what is proper business behavior and what is expected by the employer.”

You can also find Daniel on Twitter @DanielSchwartz. He, like me, finds Twitter to “be a great marketing device and novel communications tool.”

Some caution. If you are a registered representative or otherwise subject to FINRA rules, you will need to take a look at the FINRA’s Guide to the Internet. They do address Twitter directly. Unfortunately, the feature set of Twitter can fall into several of the different buckets of regulation.

The Ben Bernanke Interchange

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The rural South Carolina town of Dillon has decided to dedicate Exit 190 on Interstate 95 as the Ben Bernanke interchange.

[Insert your own joke about crashes.]

Bernanke grew up in Dillon and graduated from Dillon High School. The dedication ceremony is scheduled for Saturday.

So not confuse the Ben Bernanke Interchange at Exit 190 with Exit 193, Dillon’s second and more-used I-95 exit, named after the Honorable William James “Bill” McLeod, Sr., a WWII veteran, former state representative, and retired family court judge.

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Blogs for Investor Relations

thompson-logo1Louis Thompson, Jr. has an article in Compliance Week on using blogs for investor relations. Blogs: If Used Properly, an Investor-Friendly Tool (subscription required).

Louis focuses on the Dell Shares blog used as an investor relations tool by Dell, Inc. and the GE Reports blog used by General Electric. Since this is a blog, I was interested to see what he had to say about them.

Many of the issues and concerns that Louis brings up are not about blogs but some of the functionality of blogs. After all, a blog is just a publishing platform. It is how you use that generates value or creates problems.

All of the SEC rules about company’s distributing material information applies to blog as they do to any other company communication.

The big benefit of a blog is that it will send out a notification when there is new information. This saves me from having to come back to check for information or cramming my email inbox.  For an investor relations professional, this saves you a step of writing message and then sending an email. The blog compresses those two steps into one.

The second benefit is the interactivity. You can hear back from your investors. This is a new area and probably a little scary. You can hear criticism. You can hear compliments. For most people it is hard to take the criticism. (Personally I have come to dread silence over criticism. At least with criticism you know someone is paying attention. I find this better than being ignored.)

Certainly, you want to get some good legal advice in crafting the disclaimers and for dealing with comments on a blog. As Bruce Carton and I discussed in our Webinar on 2.0 for Securities and Compliance Professionals, blogs are just communications tools. You shouldn’t put anything in a blog that you would not put in an email or a story published on the front page of the newspaper.

Disclaimer: According to his biography, Louis is a partner with Beacon Advisors, Inc. That company is not affiliated with my employer.

Ways Webinars Fail

After my webinar with Bruce Carton on Tuesday (Web 2.0: Leveraging new media to Maximize Your Securities and Compliance Practice), I ran across a three part series on Why Webinars Fail from Larry Kilbourne: Content Failures, Format Failures and,  Process Failures.  I hope we did not make too many of these mistakes:

  • Cramming too much into one slide. The unmoving PowerPoint slide becomes like wallpaper on the monitor. (Larry recommends a slide or two per minute.)
  • A presenter simply reading the bullet points. (“Bullet points, if used properly, are the basis for commentary, not the commentary itself.”)
  • Animations and streaming video. (Audience members may not have the internet connection bandwidth to handle them.)
  • Delivering a monologue. (Use a “Charlie Rose” format.)
  • Using the webinar as a sales pitch. (Webinar registrants are prepared to get pitched, but they expect in return to receive information, data, or research that will benefit them.)
  • Live product demos. (Inevitably the product crashes – in real time, in front of an audience.)
  • Lack of preparation. (Unrehearsed webinars generally look unrehearsed.)

Thanks to Stewart Mader for pointing out these articles: Why Webinars Fail To Sustain Attention & How to Fix Them.

Compliance Building Is Now Mobile

To those of you who use mobile devices, I have installed a plugin that makes it easier to read Compliance Building on your mobile device.  It looks great on my iPhone. At some point in the future I will add a little more pizzazz to the color scheme and maybe an image. It also renders quickly on my blackberry. In each case, it shows just the last few blog post headlines and the main navigation pages.

Thanks to Stewart Mader for pointing out the MobilePress plugin for the WordPress blogging platform: Future Changes in 2009: Part 4: iPhone & Mobile Versions.

Today’s “Web 2.0″ Webcast Materials

If you plan on joining us for today’s webcast, I wanted to make some more information available.

Twitter:

twitter_logoWe will  be monitoring Twitter before, during and after the webcast for questions and comments using the #SecuritiesD hashtag.

Slides:

Web 2.0 – Leveraging New Media to Maximize Your Securities & Compliance Practice

View more presentations from Doug Cornelius. (tags: web 2.0)

You can also download the slides at:

Instructional Videos from CommonCraft:

Sites shown on the slides:

To attend this webcast scheduled for February 17, at 2 pm Eastern, please sign up on the Securities Docket website.