In the LinkedIn Digital Leaders group I posted the story about a local authority banning its staff from participating in work related discussions on a Yammer network (see previous post). The discussion covered a range of viewpoints, but there was general agreement that trying to manage risk by blocking access was futile.
Risk, nonetheless, does come up over and over again, the kneejerk reaction being that people can’t be trusted not to post sensitive information on social media. A recent article in The Conversation rather neatly puts risk in perspective by looking at how the military handles it. Careless use of social media poses a real threat to the lives of military personnel, but the response is not to ban it:
Within the UK military there is an underlying appreciation that the integration of social media builds as much on education and behavioural change as regulation
Here’s an interesting exercise for public sector managers: in the following paragraph, replace ‘defence’, ‘military’ and ‘soldiers’ with equivalent words to describe your business.
With recruitment numbers dwindling, with the risk of further defence cuts looming, and with a new military employment model imminent, military personnel are facing a period of radical change. Social media is one such challenge but, if used intelligently and sensitively, it may also be a means of negotiating new bonds of trust, community and support between soldiers, their families and the military establishment.
Now let your staff get on with learning about social media rather than relying on regulation.