Comments for Transparent Technology

Comment on Blurring the boundaries between business and personal social media

Posted by flemmo1970 on Thu, 08 Mar 2012 16:08:20 +0000

I totally agree with the points you make in your blog posts, I don’t actually think they’re that provocative as really it’s just about trusting your staff and using common sense. As you say – most well-run businesses should have all the policies they need to deal with anyone abusing social media. Social media is really just another form of communication like using the telephone, sending an email, or writing a letter (yes I know I’m showing my age there!).

I think you’re right that the more rules there are – and any legal precedents that are set – the more likely people are to stick with their personal social media accounts and not use their professional ones. This would really restrict the uptake of social media in business.

I think for some businesses there’s still a lot of mystery and misunderstanding about social media, which takes time and effort from IT and BD experts to overcome.

Comment on Changing how IT is taught in schools

Posted by flemmo1970 on Thu, 08 Mar 2012 15:57:09 +0000

I think there should be room for both. I do think that the re-introduction of programming skills – and the recent launch of the Raspberry Pi is great news. So many jobs in the future will benefit from some programming knowledge – even in creative areas such as animation. I think it’s really important to de-mystify the skill of writing software so people don’t see it as a black art.

Comment on Changing how IT is taught in schools

Posted by B.A. Gordon on Thu, 08 Mar 2012 13:04:01 +0000

I believe the government needs to jump one way or another on ICT Teaching.

All pupils should have the opportunity to learn the key IT skills they will need in the workplace (basically the MS Office suite), for most pupils this will be of more benefit in their lives than learning who was the King during the Napoleonic Wars – the next generation will just look this kind of information up on their smartphones if they need it.

However, pupils should also have the ability to learn skills which would help them get a job in the IT Industry – programming, database design, etc. This could be an option at GCSE or A-levels. Perhaps closer communication between the schools and universities (offering IT degrees) would help.

Comment on Blurring the boundaries between business and personal social media

Posted by Mark Bower on Tue, 14 Feb 2012 17:40:33 +0000

Really good post. I agree with most of what you say.

A couple of things…

If companies go down the route of saying that they own the relationships & followers of employees’ social media accounts (as some pending court cases are suggesting), then the outcome will be that staff separate out their business and personal accounts and have one for each.

That in turn will actually be bad for the business as the employee will likely be more committed to tweeting from their personal account than the corporate one – as it’s just more fun.

Instead I think companies would be better served by saying “hey, your followers are yours but if you leave you need to tweet to let them know you are leaving and suggest an alternative employee to follow who’s taking over your old role.” Then they can focus on making the most of all the employees' relationships while they are an employee rather than creating artificial boundaries between personal and work contacts that can limit the growth of their business.

Finally, I wrote a couple of (slightly provocative) blogs on social media policies a while back that are related to your topic here. I’d be interested in your thoughts.

• Four reasons your company doesn’t need a social media policy
• If you really must have a social media policy

Comment on Changing how IT is taught in schools

Posted by makemarketingwork on Thu, 12 Jan 2012 14:00:54 +0000

I can only see this as a good thing, but as with all these things the rhetoric sounds very nice but in practice could be harder to deliver. From my experience, it is all about the quality, knowledge, and enthusiasm of the teachers. I think institutional learning always suffers from teachers and lecturers being out of the “real” world for too long and therefore I suspect that the kids could teach them a thing or two, especially about IT. I would welcome more people in business getting involved in schools and teaching. When I was at school, IT teaching was done by our Maths and PE teacher!!

There is also a danger that if things are on the school curriculum they lose their appeal to young people and become boring just by association.

On a more general point I think that school curricula are too rigid and don’t allow creativity, resulting in the statement in this article “Mr Gove announced plans to free up schools to use curricula and teaching resources that properly equip pupils for the 21st Century.” Why are schools not free in the first place to decide what they teach and how they resource it??? Madness!