Facebook has been dragging its feet in the Australian social market since it was opened up to all-comers nearly a year ago. While it's adoption rate in major markets like the US and UK has been pretty impressive, take up hasn't been quite so good here in Australia as I mentioned in this
recent post. However, you know something has moved from bleeding edge to man-in-the-street when it gets
slammed in the local press as a "$5 billion waste of time".
The press feeding frenzy seems to be based on a press release by web filtering company
Surfcontrol and the figure would appear to based on an estimate that 800,000 employees spending one hour
per day on Facebook while on company time. I say "seems" and "appears" because I can't find any mention of these details on the Surfcontrol site at all. In fact, if you do find it, let me know as I'm dying to see where these magical figures have come from.
I'll set aside the dream-like quality of the $5 billion (and indeed the "hour per day" and "800,000" as well - perhaps they can all duck out for a quick drink while they wait) as unverifiable and until proven, a bit giggle-worthy. What interests me is the knee-jerk corporate reaction that anyone not spending every spare minute of their day cranking out the company widget is "wasting time".
Ross Dawson on the
Trends in Living Networks blog writes:
Of course, this is not to say that there aren’t plenty of company employees working on improving their social lives while they draw a salary.
However, the more important side of the story is that in a knowledge-based economy such as Australia, effective networking is absolutely essential to corporate productivity.
And he's absolutely right.
I am not yet convinced of the usefulness of Facebook in a business setting. This may be because I work in a public administration environment where Facebook-style networking is useful. I would also argue that there is no need for Facebook to waste time here when there are just as many committees, high level working groups and "cross silo information facilitation" sessions that achieve this goal much more successfully than Facebook ever could. It is only a matter time, however, before the right type of social network bursts on to the scene.
Companies that assume that any activity that isn't directed towards achieving the company business plan or (cringe)
mission statement is leaving itself open to the risk of falling behind when the wave
does hit. Ross also makes an excellent point when he writes:
... in May, usage of Facebook in Australia was around one quarter of that in the US and UK. Australia needs to catch up in its networking, NOT stop in its tracks.
Australia seems woefully under connected in global networks. As national borders become increasingly relegated to antiquated political constructs, ephemeral social networks are going to become more important and an ever growing source of information and even employment. Case in point here is the Finnish social network
Jaiku whose system administrator is firmly and happily implanted in New Zealand, half a world and many a timezone away.
Employers need to stop looking at how to prevent their staff from networking on company time and need to start looking at how they can use this energy and activity to their benefit. Do this, or risk being left behind.
The Google acquisition train just keeps on rolling down the tracks.
