New Comm Biz

In December I predicted that over the next 5 years we would see intranets begin to integrate with social networks. I’ve seen some signs recently that this might take longer than I anticipated (but trust me it will happen).

The intranet is a metaphor for corporate control.

Intranets are secure networks of communication. Employees can safely share information, trusting that it won’t find its way out into untrustworthy hands. With the exception of email sent outside the network almost all communication stays behind the firewall. The firewall works both ways to keep information in and information out. Intranets are siloed and, as they exist today, make it difficult to share information across a company. Just over 10 years ago the Cluetrain Manifesto hypothesized:

the cluetrain manifesto

Corporate firewalls have kept smart employees in and smart markets out. It’s going to cause real pain to tear those walls down. But the result will be a new kind of conversation. And it will be the most exciting conversation business has ever engaged in.

Social media tools have shown an incredible ability to tear down those walls. This has caused a lot of pain and consternation among executives. My last post covered a disturbing email I received from a friend of mine in the financial sector that was being forced to delete their LinkedIn profile because it was considered an individual, professional website.

On the WE Studio D Thinkers and Doers blog I also posted about Forrester forcing all of their employees to shut down their personal blogs if they overlapped with their area of focus at Forrester and would only be allowed to blog about that topic on the forthcoming Forrester blog.

What we are witnessing is the corporate extension of the “firewall” into social media. While this is not an actual firewall it is the way companies are trying to control what would normally happen within or through their firewall.

Shel Holtz has started the Stop Blocking blog to address the problems employees face when their employers flex their firewalls to stop employees from accessing social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter. With the ever increasing capabilities to access these sites via mobile phone that just seems ridiculous. You can’t stop my smart phone, even if I am at work.

All of this seems like a sad attempt to stop the inevitable. Why not work with your employees to reach a win-win instead of trying to stifle them? It just doesn’t make sense to me.

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