John Lamb: Waiting to be poked by social networking

Jan 28 2008 By John Lamb

I've been poked. Or was it prodded? Or pushed? Whatever. The truth is I've registered for Facebook.

I'm not entirely sure whether this is a good idea or not and only time will tell. Because, according to newspaper reports, once you're in it's difficult to get out. Anyway, I'm game and I'm trying to master the lingo, as you can see.

I was first introduced to this phenomenon by a lady author who is a former colleague. "Let's see how long it is before you're hooked," she wrote. Yes, indeed.

Also, with my chairman's hat on at Birmingham Press Club, I asked a colleague to devise a group site.

Facebook allows you to reacquaint yourself with old friends and find new ones. However, it's a little disconcerting when as a rookie, the Facebook announces that you have no friends. And even now I appear to have only two. Johnny No-Mates, indeed.

I'm just counting on the cause being my lack of technical know-how when it comes to navigating the Facebook empire.

Spookily, it seems that once you're on the network, all sorts of skeletons might fall out of the cupboard. I can't wait.

However, a report reaches me that says the popularity of social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace and Bebo is costing UK corporations close to £6.5 billion annually in lost productivity.

The poll was carried out by Global Secure Systems (GSS), an information security consultancy. It worked out the cost through a miasmatic calculation about average wages, hours, holidays, access to the internet, time spent on it and much more.

Apparently, 776 office workers interviewed admitted spending at least 30 minutes a day visiting social network sites at work.

GSS says that equates a minimum of 10 hours a month or three weeks every year, with two respondents who were so hooked that they spent three hours visiting these sites every day.

I'm happy to report that I only access my site in my own time, which is pretty clogged up with work anyway (honest).

And I've just had notification that Ski Sunday has added me as a friend. I've known of the programme, but since I've never skied I'm not sure why it wants me as a friend. It could be cover for something else, of course, so it's tempting to accept it as a friend for curiosity's sake. But as soon as you do that you're linked. This monster could get out of control.

It's not surprising that most IT managers loathe social networking events when you consider that in some cases between 15 and 20 per cent of their current bandwidth (capacity I guess for we non-geeks) is being taken up with this new phenomenon.

But news is filtering through that HR departments actually like social networking. Apparently, these sites are the way many new recruits like to communicate and work.

I suppose it's yet another tool to avoid personal contact. Another way to dump messages on your colleagues and walk away. New methods of communication - emails, texts and now Facebook are simply a sloths' charter.

"I sent him an email but never got a reply." You can hear the cry across the offices of the city. "She never answers her phone, simply filters the calls and replies days later if she can be bothered."

Nevertheless one expert, David Hobson, managing director of GSS, says "for some sectors social networking sites may have a part to play in terms of competitive advantage or as a marketing tool".

Some companies are banning social networking sites but most are introducing a "reasonable use" policy.

Apparently, the new way of communicating is even being embraced by the Salvation Army. They say they have a mission "to spread the Christian message and reach out to those in need and we'll employ any tools we can to achieve that aim..."

I've no intention of mocking the Sally Army for trying to spread the Word, but I haven't spotted too many laptops in cardboard city.

Poked? It's what we Facebookers say to indicate that someone in the ether has inquired about you (I think).