By Jill Pyle
Aditya Kishore’s article “Resistance is futile fatal,” published online at Internet Evolution and in the October 15 edition of Information Week, describes the dilemma many business technology managers are facing: restrict access to the “digital content ecosystem” or embrace it and use it to meet business objectives.
Kishore writes, “Today’s social networking and digital content sites are shaping IT users’ expectations and experiences for years to come. Rich media applications are becoming an essential part of the Internet experience, not just for entertainment but also for legitimate business reasons. Similarly, online communities and networking sites are becoming increasingly important for communication and interaction.”
For companies ready to acknowledge that times have changed and resistance isn’t the answer, Kishore shares a few recommendations. First, work with employees at all levels to define a clear policy on acceptable Internet use at work. Second, install network intelligence software that tracks the volume and type of network traffic. When monitoring networks, make sure employees are aware of the situation and proactively address privacy concerns. Finally, consider implementing filtering software but limit the number of sites blocked and communicate the rational for restrictions.
By Jill Pyle
Starting a new job is never easy. As the new person in the office, there’s always an overwhelming amount of information to absorb. If you’re hired by an organization with a formal and thorough orientation process, consider yourself lucky. I’ve had some employers that expected me to learn by osmosis. Others have been kind enough to hand off a stack of dusty binders or offer a computer where I can navigate the depths of the company web site. I’ve come to the conclusion that orientation processes are often reflective of how organizations manage and share knowledge.
Typically, when I enter a new work place, I spend the first week getting to know my colleagues and volunteering for all the dreadful jobs they’ve been putting off, like “washing through” a list of 10,000 contacts. When I joined inmedia, I was assigned a unique introductory task. They asked me to write the employee manual.
I bet you’re thinking, as I was then, they must be crazy. Well, not exactly.
As a long-standing and close-knit team, they were too entrenched in the inmedia process to convey it to a newbie in any orderly or efficient fashion. Everything that was new to me was second nature to them. I had to become an observer.
inmedia, like many organizations, needed someone new and unbiased to take a fresh look at their process, collect information and transfer it somewhere safe. The task seemed daunting at first but with the help of a wiki, I created a home for our explicit and tacit knowledge.
Our wiki-based employee manual will always be a work in progress; that’s the beauty of a wiki. For the overwhelmed new hire assigned the role of wiki editor, here are my best practices:
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By Jill Pyle
According to the recent Earth to Tech blog entry Your Bad Code Is Killing My Planet, “virtualization and on-demand computing are giving companies new reasons to worry about code efficiency.”
Alistair Croll, vice president of product management and co-founder of Coradiant, writes about how applications with inefficient code require more processing power, storage and bandwidth. When deployed on a large scale, inefficient applications ultimately require more energy to run.
This makes me wonder, will more companies start coding for energy efficiency and promoting their applications as green?
By Jill Pyle
Yesterday, Google acquired Jaiku, a tool for sharing your online activity stream or, as some have come to call it, lifestream. With Jaiku, you don’t have to bounce around the internet to see what your friends have been up to. Instead, you can view their latest Twitter status, flickr photos, Google Reader shared items, blog posts and Facebook updates all in one place.
Jaiku has decided to focus on innovation instead of scaling and is currently not accepting any new users. Once their doors reopen, I’m sure lots of people will be eager to create lifestreams. With Google backing a service like Jaiku, I think it’s only a matter of time before we see lifestreams go mainstream.
By Jill Pyle
Spam has been invading my inbox for years. Even with filters and blacklists, it always finds a way in. At the best of times it’s annoying, at the worst it hinders productivity.
Since registering for services like Facebook, Twitter, Aeroplan and Google news alerts, my spam count has been trumped by bacn. Bacn (pronounced “bacon”) is a new buzzword used to describe the pesky email notifications you’ve opted to receive but don’t want to read right now. Typical bacn messages include “Bob is now following you on Twitter!”, “Exclusive discount off our U.S. fares” and “Jane wants Sushi Meetups too!” If you don’t make a habit of instantly deleting bacn, it often remains unread and can quickly pollute your inbox.
The worst thing about bacn is that you’ve agreed or asked to receive it. It’s self-inflicted aggravation. Luckily, bacn can be stopped if you take the time to adjust your account settings and notification preferences. Unfortunately, this process can sometimes be more annoying than receiving bacn.
When you register for a new service, pay close attention to your notification preferences. Stop bacn before it starts.
