Stop banning the internet

A nice column by Deborah hill Cone on ACP’s decision then reversal of the decision to ban Facebook use by staff. It was an uninformed move as Facebook is quite the weapon for journalists.

Deborah also lets slip that NZ Herald also bans Facebook, and no doubt have all sorts of other sites on the banned list.

Here’s a cluestick for all big media companies, heck – for all companies:

Stop banning the internet.

Treat your employees like adults.

No – wait. Treat your employees like children, and educate and expose them to the hazard rather than pretending that the road, river or internet doesn’t exist.

Your employees are not going to turn into MySpace Evercrack Adultfriendfinder Secondlife NZDating addicts downloading pr0n instead of working. OK – maybe one or two will try, but you have the normal tools of management to help them out right? (and when I say help them out, I mean help them focus on work, and give them challenges.)

Meanwhile your provider of banning services, whether internal or external, will often get it downright wrong, and ban sites that should be open to all. The process will also slow things down, and makes your employees feel like they are not trusted, both of which have a detrimental effect on productivity and retention.

Your employees will soon tire of your internet access restrictions, stick their heads back in their shell, and reduce their use of the internet for its truly useful purpose – the world’s research and communication tool.

The answer is simple. Protect your browsers with decent firewalls and the like, stop spyware from coming in by using those firewalls, track IP addresses that people go to (and let them know you do), follow up on anyone that is going to truly nasty sites, but, for goodness sake, do not physically prevent anyone from going anyware.