In a recent survey Executives were asked, “How comfortable would you feel about being ‘friended’ by the following individuals on Facebook?” Their responses:

• 19 percent said they were very comfortable being friended by their boss; 13 percent for co-workers, 12 percent for people they manage; 7 percent for clients; and 6 percent for vendors.
• 28 percent said they were somewhat comfortable being friended by their boss; 38 percent for co-workers, 32 percent for people they manage; 34 percent for clients; and 23 percent for vendors.
• 15 percent said they were not very comfortable being friended by their boss; 13 percent for co-workers, 15 percent for people they manage; 17 percent for clients; and 24 percent for vendors.
• 32 percent said they were not comfortable being friended by their boss; 28 percent for co-workers, 33 percent for people they manage; 33 percent for clients; and 38 percent for vendors.
• 6 percent said they weren’t sure about being friended by their boss; 8 percent for co-workers, 8 percent for people they manage; 9 percent for clients; and 9 percent for vendors.

“The line between personal and professional has grown increasingly blurred as more people use social networking Web sites for business purposes,” said Robert Hosking, executive director of OfficeTeam. “Although not everyone is comfortable using sites like Facebook to connect with professional contacts, it’s wise to be prepared for these types of requests.”

Hosking advises employees on Facebook to be sure they are in compliance with their employer’s social networking policy. They should then familiarize themselves with privacy settings and create different friend lists to control how — and with whom — information is shared.

“Individuals should classify their professional contacts into a ‘work’ list and limit what personal details this group can view,” said Hosking.

Following are some common Facebook situations professionals may encounter and how to handle them:

• You’re tagged in an embarrassing photo. Untag yourself and change your privacy settings so photos are viewable only by your close friends.

• You’re friended by someone you don’t want to connect with. It might be best to accept friend requests from colleagues to avoid slighting them, but add them to a work list and adjust your privacy settings so you can effectively separate your job from your personal life.

• You’re considering friending your boss. It may seem like a natural extension of amiable office small talk, but think twice before proactively friending your boss. It could become awkward for both of you.

• You want to join various groups. You should join groups that interest you. But if you have colleagues in your network and don’t want them to see the groups you join, remember to adjust your application settings.

• You would like to be a fan of certain pages. Becoming a fan of pages on Facebook is visible to anyone who can view your profile, so you should avoid becoming a fan of any page you are uncomfortable sharing with co-workers or business contacts in your network.

• You love quizzes. Stop and think for a moment before taking online quizzes and posting the results to your Facebook page, unless you want professional contacts to know which “Gilligan’s Island” character you most resemble.

Tak sobie myślę, że jeśli dziś, w jakiejś firmie, pracownicy działu sprzedaży nie mają dostępu do social media w pracy, to z tą firmą jest coś nie tak. Albo raczej z jej szefem.

Obrazek pochodzi ze strony Social Web Reaserch

Jak wynika z badań Facetime, szefowie IT w firmach, mają coraz mniej zastrzeżeń przeciwko dostępności do social media w firmowych sieciach. No, ale im chodzi o bezpieczeństwo. Ciekawe jak to wygląda w przypadku szefów innych działów.

Taki np. dział sprzedaży. Ludzie tam zatrudnieni siedzą tam po to, aby generować coraz większą sprzedaż dla firmy. Oczywiście, aby im się to udało ważny jest sam produkt, jego cena, itp. itd. ale… wszystko zależy tak naprawdę od umiejętności sprzedawców.

A jednym z atutów dobrego sprzedawcy jest otwartość na ludzi i umiejętność nawiązywania z nimi dobrych relacji. Więc social media są dla niego w takim przypadku stworzone. Facebook jako miejsce, gdzie można pochwalić się zdjęciami z ostatniej imprezy, Twitter (Blip, Flaker), gdzie można szybko skomentować najnowsze informacje z rynku, na którym działamy czy też LinkedIn pomagający rozszerzać naszą sieć sprzedaży.

Social media są pod tym względem wymarzonym miejscem dla ludzi z działu sprzedaży. Jednak uwaga! Nie dla wszystkich.

Nie jest to, np. miejsce dla sprzedawców-uwodzicieli lub akwizytorów. Dwa słowa o nazewnictwie: Sprzedawca-uwodziciel, to taki typ, który po prostu uwodzi klienta a potem go wykorzystuje (bez skojarzeń proszę), a sprzedawca-akwizytor, to taki, który klienta ogłusza i wciska mu produkt na siłę Czyli są to osoby nastawione tylko na chamską sprzedaż a nie na żadne budowanie relacji.

Dlaczego social media nie są dla nich? Ponieważ relacje, jakie się w nich buduje, są prawdziwe. Będąc znajomymi na Facebooku, nie stajemy się od razu przyjaciółmi, ale jednak nasza znajomość tam, ma charakter bliższy niż znajomość stricte zawodowa.

A to niesie ze sobą konieczność postępowania etycznie. Nikomu w gronie moich znajomych na FB nie mogę zaproponować moich usług i produktów wiedząc, że tak naprawdę ich nie potrzebują. To znaczy mogę, ale – gdy się zorientują – automatycznie skreśli mnie to z grona ich znajomych. Trzy, cztery takie numery i w social mediach (podobnie jak normalnym życiu zawodowym) nie mam czego szukać.

Bo pamięć internetu jest wieczna. I w tym przypadku – to jest jego zaleta.

Dział marketingu. Logistyki. Finansów. W każdym z nich pracują ludzie, którzy w ramach swoich obowiązków zawodowych, muszą kontaktować się z innymi ludźmi w otoczeniu firmy.

Dziś robią to indywidualnie. Pani Krysia z działu Logistyki dzwoni do Pana Romka z firmy spedycyjnej i załatwia co trzeba. Gdy Pani Krysia wyjeżdża na urlop, to powstaje problem, kto ma się kontaktować z Panem Romkiem. Znamy to z własnego podwórka.

W social web, gdy i Pani Krysia, i Pan Romek i szef Pani Krysi i Pana Romka  i ich koleżanki i koledzy z działów są znajomymi na Facebooku, albo i, jeszcze lepiej, znajomymi na Twitterze – te problemy stają się mniejsze. Wzrasta wiedza samych organizacji o sobie, a pracujących w niej ludzi, o zadaniach koleżanek i kolegów z pracy. O promocji naszej marki i kultury firmy, już nie wspomnę. Pisałem zresztą o tym, przy okazji dodatku o social mediach w Businessweeku.

Oczywiście, aby taki schemat działał, w social media musieliby się znaleźć wszyscy. Ale tak się wkrótce stanie. Tak jak na biurku każdego pracownika pojawiły się komputery a w kieszeni komórki.

Więc się zapytam: Szefie! Czy Twoi ludzie mają otwarte na pulpitach swoich komputerów Twittery i Facebooki? I czy w gronie swoich znajomych, mają tam tylko ciotki i przyjaciółki z liceum, czy też znajomych z grona Waszych klientów?

Warto się nad tym przez weekend zastanowić.

It’s a curious thing, I’ll tell ya, this new age of social networking. I’m tweeting, I’m posting, I’m commenting, I’m following, I’m being followed, I’m adding, I’m blogging, I’m searching, I’m sharing, I’m giving lots of little “thumbs ups” and “I like” kudos.

Now that I’m Twitter-ing, Facebook-ing, blogging and emailing more these days, the potential is there every day to spend a ridiculous amount of time at the computer.  I log on to check my Facebook, warm cup of coffee in hand. An hour later… I’m still here, coffee gone cold, a cramp in my ass.   Seems Facebook challenges some of our, say… compulsive tendencies?

Like anything, this social networking phenomenon has its dark and light qualities. It’s not all “bad!”  I notice I’m writing more these days. I find the 140-character Twitter experience an opportunity to actually become a better writer and make points more concise and clearer. I feel more connected and in touch with many of the people I care about than I did before this new age of networking washed over my life.

However, this is how I enter the “Danger Zone” when it comes to social networking: I find that the more time I spend connected to these sites, the less time I’m actually connected to myself, the things I want and even the things I value.

You know, it’s a perplexing paradox we’ve only now had to acknowledge: with every tweet, post, update, comment, note, kudos and quiz, are we connecting or disconnecting?

I don’t know about you, but for me, it’s way TOO easy to be distracted by everything else that’s going on in those virtual spaces and forget to connect to the real space around me.

Maybe you also find yourself swept up and away by these distractions. Maybe you’re immune.   Interestingly, when I lost electric power for over three hours a couple of weeks ago, I reluctantly realized the beauty of being unplugged and, as a beautiful bi-product, ended up reconnecting with what was important to me.  I’ve since committed to being “off the grid” at least 3 hours per day.

It’s just one of the many opportunities I get each day to reclaim my life. And so I ask, dear reader, where and how do you need to reclaim your life?  What steps are you willing to take to do so?  Are you connected or disconnected?

If you’re anything like me, connection and disconnection is a colorful, oscillating, see-sawing garden variety that needs to be ‘kept in check’ on a regular basis.

For me, it boils down to balance and intention. I find that it’s important to be clear about my intentions for each communication channel.  Oh, there’s that wonderful word: intention.

What is my intention and is the time and energy I’m spending in this vortex (or vacuum) in line with that intention?  Without the clear and specific intention, time slips away and I’m no closer to what I want.

So I try to keep in mind each day… there’s Facebook and there’s facetime. There’s Twitter and there’s talking.  There’s cyber-life and there’s real life. There’s virtual reality and there’s, well… reality.  I know where I want to do most of my living, thank you. What about you?

“Do you think I should go back to the office?” Black queried the group of first-year Corporate associates. It was Friday. None of us had any work to do, and we were enjoying a leisurely lunch at a local establishment that we had frequented as summer associates. “Or, should I go shopping?”

Now I recount this not to suggest that Black is an irresponsible slacker. Quite the opposite. She has more Ivy League degrees than I can shake a stick at and obsesses over every assignment she is given.

Rather, I recount it to convey Black’s dilemma. While she had nothing doing at the moment– and likely nothing going on for the rest of the day– she had just been told that work would come in over the weekend that would require her immediate attention. So she could go back to work and contemplate the whiteness of her walls, or she could take the afternoon off to accomplish in a few hours what she had been planning to do over the (now-ruined) weekend.

“Go shopping,” we said.

She came back to the office, of course. On Sunday she billed six hours.

Now, I’m not saying that we should break out the tiny violins for Black or me or anyone else. We knew that snapping on the golden handcuffs meant signing up to work evenings, weekends, and holidays. (And really, who can complain about having work at a time when so many are out of it? Kind of a bit Marie Antoinette-ish.)

No, it’s not work that’s the object of my scorn. It’s work’s scorned and wretched step-cousin: facetime. In theory I understand why facetime is important. Clients’ needs are frequently urgent and unexpected. Firms require an army of associates ready for battle at a moment’s notice. That’s fair and reasonable. And when the economy is humming along normally, it works.

But when showing up at work feels as futile and pointless as entering 4 8 15 16 23 42 into a computer every 108 minutes, facetime just becomes downright frustrating. As frustrating as sitting at your desk on a Friday doing nothing but counting down to 5:00 pm all the while knowing that you’ll be spending the weekend working.

MX Lab offers Unified Communications Protection based on FaceTime’s Unified Security Gateway (USG) appliance that allows enterprises to communicate and collaborate in a save environment without sacrificing security and control.

Combined with the in house developed and managed MX Lab Zero Hour Anti Virus & Anti Spam services offers an complete solution for your business communication wether it’s email, web, IM, Skype.

Read the press release MX Lab offers Unified Communications Protection at the MX Lab web site

[Read original article here]

In this world of figures such as the infamous Jack Thomson and a myriad of Politicians ready at a moment’s notice to tar and feather any part of the gaming industry they can get their hands on, the incessant mewling of “concerned parents” and certain companies (cough-taketwo-cough) gleefully drawing scandal and controversy into their bosoms the video game industry is under a near constant public scrutiny. With a plethora of pseudo-studies claiming that video games cause mass homicidal psychosis in everyone exposed to them there is no shortage of ammunition that these political mudslingers and ambulance chasers can lob in the direction of anything connected to a joystick.

Thankfully amidst the sludgy haze of the dozens of studies claiming video games are shaped by the devil in the very bowls of hell and shipped directly from central 7th circle onto retailer shelves throughout the world there is some hope. A recent examination of the effects of video games on by Drs. Lawrence Kutner and Cheryl K. Olson (co-founders and directors of the Harvard Medical School Center for Mental Health and Media) entitled Grand Theft Childhood: The Surprising Truth about Violent Video Games and What Parents Can Do dispels many of the unreasonable fears about that have been fostered by the likes of Jack Thompson and makes some pretty surprising revelations about the effects of games on young children along the way. The following is an interview by Adam Sessler with the two authors who give a brief synopsis of the prevailing message of the book.

FaceTime-turvayhtiön johtaja Chris Boyd kertoi blogissaan havainneensa lukuisia hyökkäyksiä, joissa Facebookin käyttäjätilejä on kaapattu ja niitä käytetty kuvien julkaisuun muilla sivuilla.

- Olen saanut vihiä ystävältäni, että joku liikkuu Facebookissa ja joko kaappaa, krakkeroi tai harrastaa phishingiä ja sitten lataa lasten kidutusta esittäviä kuvia tileille, kerrotaan uutisissa. Lue uutisista lisää.

BAU,

De pe Net Security, via Google News:
“Malware findings 2007: instant messaging and P2P

Posted on 18.01.2008

FaceTime announced its initial findings of 2007 malware trends affecting today’s enterprise networks through instant messaging (IM), P2P file sharing and chat applications. During 2007 there were 1,088 incidents reported over all IM, P2P, and chat vectors.

[...]“

Continuarea.

How often do we recite these excuses rather then going to see someone: 

           It takes too much time and I am very busy.          

           It is too expensive and I have many other things to do.         

           It is too long of a trip.            What, fly?  

           It is not worth it.           

           It is just as good over the phone, or by fax or e-mail.

Excuses, excuses, excuses…to not make a personal visit to do business face to face. In this age of cell phones, e-mail, of course the fax machine, and with our  very important and busy schedules, we frequently forget one of the basic principles of doing business successfully…do it in person.

Personal presentation is so much more powerful and successful then any other form of communication, yet we leave the office as seldom as possible and resort to the more convenient forms of communication that are so readily available.

We have forgotten that while the technological age has made communication so much easier, nothing will ever replace the power, effectiveness and success of a face to face conversation, lunch together, a round of golf or any other personal setting one can devise.

Allow me to digress. Years ago I had a business relationship with a distributor who represented my line of manufactured goods. The man owed me a sizable amount of money and agreed to pay me $20,000 per week for a number of months. Every Wednesday I would call to make certain the check “was in the mail” and almost every time he told me, he “couldn’t do it this week, sorry“. I told him I would jump on a plane and  be there in a few hours, he was in Detroit I was in Massachusetts. 

He would always say, don’t bother there is nothing I can do for you this week. I went anyways and each week I would come home with a check for twenty thousand dollars. This went on until the bill was paid…almost every week. Why? Personal power, my very presence, and I never had to hard collect, just going was adequate. Frequently we would go out for drinks, sometimes I would stay over and visit with him, but I would always leave with a check.

From then on I never forgot the power of personal face time .

Closing a deal, discussing details, creating relationship, selling, collecting, solving problems, scheming, planning whatever the mission is, if it is important then it is best served with a personal presentation…always.

Recently I flew to Florida for a one hour meeting that expanded into lunch and another few hours of getting to know one another. I was inspecting a small business to determine if I wanted to do business with these people. It was possible that they would become an important provider of a specific service I deem very important.

They are a credit rehabilitation company, credit repair, it is sometimes called and since so many of my clients require such service, I felt it necessary to inspect, interview, meet, talk and get to know the staff, the managers, and yes of course the owner, as well as discuss details of our working together.

Much was accomplished as we got to know each other, discussed a wide variety of experiences, opinions, personal matters, history, business strategies, all sorts of things including the specifics of our deal and business relationship.

It was wonderful and we accomplished much more then we all intended. We had lunch together and talked about our wives and children and of course sports, politics, business and what we learned more about what we are each all about.

What a success.

In fact the man was very impressed that I cared enough to come down for personal discussion taking a day out of my busy schedule, indicating not only the importance but my willingness to invest in our meeting and possible business relationship.

It was a huge success and NEVER could have been accomplished over the phone. Now we have a personal relationship which will soon grow both in the business we do together and the understanding we have of each other as well as the trust that has begun to develop. This NEVER could have been accomplished over the phone.

Lunch was crucial as we relaxed and got to know each other. Afterwards communicating with his staff, showing them respect and letting them get to know us was also an added huge benefit.

I believe anything important, is worth my effort to do personally as it works far better and most frequently results in the desired conclusion. It helps convert strictly business relationships to personal relationships and the power of personal contact is incredibly huge.

Yet in today’s hurry up world we seem to ignore this basic truth. We are too busy, its too expensive, it takes too much of our time and everything else is so much more important. I think otherwise.

Mongol General: What is best in life?
Conan: To crush your enemies, to see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of their women.