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Tech trends

By Bob Little (March 2008 Issue)
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Research suggests that social networking (SW) websites cost UK companies £132m a day through lost productivity (according to Peninsula) or £6.5bn a year (Global Secure Systems (GSS)). GSS’s recent poll of 776 office workers discovered they each spent at least 30 minutes a day visiting SW sites while at work.

A recent meeting of 20 corporate chief information and security officers (CISOs), under the auspices of Infosecurity Europe 2008, estimated that between 15 per cent and 20 per cent of organisations’ bandwidth involves SW activities. So, unsurprisingly, web security firm ScanSafe has revealed that a third of bosses in the UK are blocking SW sites – such as Facebook, Myspace, Bebo and even LinkedIn – and 54 per cent claim to block employee access to video downloads amid fears that they reduce worker productivity and can cause ‘security issues’.

One FTSE100 company now blocks Facebook because it was consuming 30 per cent of its bandwidth. MySpace and eBay currently consume 10 per cent and 5 per cent respectively of its corporate internet browsing bandwidth.

“Organisations have a long way to go in getting to grips with the risks presented by SW,” argues David Lacey, a member of the BCS Security Forum Strategic Panel. “Lost productivity is the tip of the iceberg. The threat of social engineering to hijack sensitive information is real and growing.”

David Hobson, GSS’s managing director, says: “SW raises security implications – where hackers and extortionists extract information on the members. But SW sites are integral to the way that many of the youngest workers communicate and work. So, for some sectors, SW sites may be valuable as a research or marketing tool.”

Ron Edwards, the CEO of Ambient Performance, providers of enterprise learning architecture, mobile performance solutions and virtual world applications, agrees: “Some organisations see SW sites as ‘time wasters’. But, as we increasingly turn to our ‘posse’ of contacts to get answers, collaborate and learn with others inside and outside our organisations, should we have to turn off the tools that make it easy to do so? After all, companies value highly networked employees – who are either using these same tools or ones with similar features.”

Claire Sellick, of Infosecurity Europe, says: “It appears that most CISOs and IT directors loathe SW sites but HR departments seem to welcome their use – so there is some debate between HR and IT over how best to manage these sites.”

SW services contain directories (such as former classmates), means to connect with friends (usually with self-description pages) and recommendation systems linked to trust. SW services allow users to interact, via chat, messaging, email, video, voice chat, file sharing, blogging, discussion groups, and so on.

Yet already, SW seems to be developing. Last month saw the launch of a social networking site aimed at collaborative learning. Voxswap.com seeks to match people around the world learning one another’s languages so they can help each other progress for free. For example, an English person learning German can be matched with a German learning English. According to the site’s co-founder, Sean Hargrave: “I’m convinced SW is here to stay, but it needs to have a point.”

Another site launched in January – horsesmouth.co.uk – seeks partners from charities, social enterprises and voluntary organisations to provide volunteers to mentor members of the public. Open and free to anyone aged 16 or over, horsesmouth allows people to volunteer by sharing their life experiences anonymously, providing advice on a safe and moderated platform, and mentoring each other on virtually any topic.

The site’s founder, Mary Teresa Rainey, a non-executive director of WH Smith Plc, Visiting Professor at Glasgow University and a member of the Skills Commission, says: “If eBay is about the stuff you’ve got locked up in the attic, horsesmouth is about the stuff you’ve got locked up in your head and heart. I’ve always believed in the power of mentoring but it’s been so hard to scale. Now, with the social web, we can do that.”

SW sites do more than show us who our friends’ friends are. They allow employers to find out more about their potential employees than CVs reveal. And, with the development of SW sites like voxswap and horsesmouth, they are playing a part in knowledge and skills development – adding to UK plc’s, organisations’ and individuals’ competitive advantages.

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