I’ve long been opposed to censorship, especially in Social Media. I’m an ardent supporter of free speech, my right to express my views and indeed your right to be offended and argue your position.  Mark Twain nailed it in my opinion:

“Censorship is telling a man he can’t have a steak just because a baby can’t chew it”

As with all things Internet, there are hacks available.  Any censored content will be flagged to the user – and you’re able to go tell Twitter you’re in another country (it simply picks up your country via IP identification), so you’ll still be able to get at that content (thanks TNW). Only problem there is that Twitter is accessed more and more via mobile – when I’m guessing that hack is substantially more difficult.

I’m moved to write this for a number of reasons. First off, as you can no doubt tell, it’s a subject I feel strongly about.

Secondly, and I think it’s a bad move for Twitter. I understand why they feel it’s necessary in order to continue expansion and to protect from legal threats in future, but this just feels wrong. It’s up there with Google’s search results giving you a personal version of the internet, as opposed to the actual best results. Transparency is losing.

Finally, Twitter was one of the key empowerment platforms of the Arab Spring.  Social Media didn’t cause that revolution – but there’s a strong case to say it supported.

This move suggests Twitter wants to win by supporting government wishes than by supporting the requirements of users. 

A sad day indeed.

Fact: most employees occasionally use social media tools at work for personal reasons, anyway. Unsurprisingly, business leaders want guidelines in place for regulating employee use of social media outlets–and protecting against misuse–on personal and company accounts alike. Many 2012 corporate to-do lists include creating an official policy for regulating employees’ Tweets, Likes and Shares while at work.

One thing that I’ve noticed, though, is that while regulation-focused policies protect an organization against any potential social media blunders, they cast a shadow over the shoulder of every employee who uses the internet on a daily basis (shudder). Well-intended though they are, this approach to establishing guidelines often prevent the company from seeing any benefits whatsoever from employee use of social media. My suggestion: If your employees are already using social media while at work, why not make the most of it?

Though there’s certainly more than one way to skin this cat – there isn’t one universal social media policy that works for all, right? – there are a few things to consider when creating a more forward-thinking policy.

For example, you want to be sure you, your leaders, and your people know what you want to accomplish through social media. Are you using it for recruiting? Marketing? Branding? Promotions? For many organizations, the first step in creating a social media policy is to define the who, what, when and where of social media usage in the company. But according to Maren Hogan, Chief Marketing Brain of RedBranchMedia, “that’s doing it a little backwards.” With a clear purpose informing your policy, people will have an easier time understanding and following your guidelines.

On that note, you’re going to make sure that – regardless of your specific business goals – you are sure to invite everyone in the organization to participate. Of course, you’ll work with managers to decide which departments must incorporate social media into their daily workflows… But how can you encourage other departments to participate? One note: Set separate guidelines delineating voluntary users and mandatory users, so your people know what’s expected of them.

At some point, you’re going to need damage control. “When social media issues arise,” says Hogan, “who do you go to for help? IT? Marketing? A social media coordinator? The CIO?”  Get proactive, and establish a hierarchy of ownership – that way, your people will know when to talk to whom about what. Assign responsibility to the most sensible parties and provide a course of action for addressing mishaps and escalating issues when necessary.

So maybe you’re not paying people to hang out on Facebook all day. Structure is certainly important, and defining who is authorized to access various platforms makes sense… but “Our brains don’t work with don’ts–they work in a positive way,” says Rob Garcia, VP of Product at UpMo. “Policies that limit and regulate are bound to be unsuccessful. They push people away from social media, rather than using it to achieve company goals.” Bottom line: People are bound to make mistakes, your policies should be driven by what to do, rather than what not do.

You’re bound to run into a few challenges when creating, implementing and supporting an official social media policy. Hands-down, the hardest part is building a company culture that embraces a social mindset, one driven by the sharing of ideas and information. With that in mind, leadership should lead the charge in adopting your social media policy, paving the way for the rest of the organization. Garcia’s straightforward advice to leaders: “Show up and participate. The companies that are the most social media savvy are led by people who are plugged in and using different platforms to have valuable conversations.”

About the Author: Kyle Lagunas is the HR Analyst at Software Advice. On the surface, it’s his job to contribute to the ongoing conversation on all things HR. Beyond that, he makes sure his audience is keeping up with important trends and hot topics in the industry. Focused on offering a fresh take on points of interest in his market, he’s not your typical HR guy.

Rather than give you my own partially formed analysis, I’ll give you this summary from VentureBeat (the full article includes more detail on the proposals and on the blackout campaign):

SOPA and PIPA would give the U.S. government and copyright holders the authority to seek court orders against foreign-operated websites associated with infringing, pirating or counterfeiting intellectual property. If it becomes law, it could drastically change the way the Internet operates. For example, if a website is accused of containing copyright-infringing content, the site could be blocked by ISPs, de-indexed from search engines and even prevented from doing business online with services like PayPal.

I’d also like to offer you this short video by way of further insight. Thanks to Stephen O’Donnell for this.

1. Ideally, five people is my limit. There’s a law to be applied here: The usefulness of any meeting is inversely proportional to the number of people in attendance.
2. No decision-maker? No meeting.
3. No reporters. Nothing constructive to add? Don’t be there. Be somewhere else, doing something else.
4. Corridor meetings are NOT evil. How many times have you sat in a session with a handful of people for an hour, and thought upon leaving “well, a 5 minute conversation with X would have resolved that”?
5. Be on time. Everyone has occasional over-runs, but if someone is a regular late arrival or no-show, it denotes a lack of respect for either the subject matter or the team. Whichever it is, the impact will be detrimental eventually.
6. The agenda. If you need to hit a specific subject hard, prepare one. If it’s a thought session, why do it as a formal meeting? Go get lunch together instead, allow your brain to wander. Creativity is the key.
7. Argue. Debate. Air your views. Don’t sit quietly, accept something you disagree with, then do a half-hearted job of delivering it. You may lose the debate, but you’ll be pleased you fought your corner.
8. Have someone in the hot-seat. Doesn’t always need to be the decision maker, but if you’re there to achieve something (which you should be!), you need to stay on track.
9. Think as you arrange: “Could this have been an email?”. If it’s just informational…

That’s me done for now.  What else can I be doing?

“Whether computers can think is like the question of whether submarines can swim. In English, we say submarines don’t swim, but we say aeroplanes do fly. In Russian, they say submarines do swim”.

I experienced a similar translation issue when in the US a few years back. In the UK recruitment market, we speak of Vacancies – yet in the US, this refers most often to empty hotel rooms. Continuing this debate with a colleague, I question whether such difference are purely a dint of language. Initially, with the fly vs swim debate, there’s an organic difference. “A ball can fly, if hit hard enough” – but swimming implies natural movement, something organic in origin. Is this the explanation, some gut reaction that attaches to one kind of movement more than another? Nope. On further debate, it’s more a combination of context and historical comfort with the construct.

My real interest lies more with words and phrases that are relevant to my professional life right now. Human Capital is one. Talent is another. I see both becoming ever more commonplace, and mixed feelings about them. I have my own strong views on both, but as I’ve explained previously, sometimes I want to use this forum to gauge the reactions of others. A kind of sanity check, if you like.

With that in mind, I’d really love your first reactions to these two, both from an employer / recruiter perspective and also considering them as a job seeker. Do you have a Talent Acquisition team? How would you feel if you were hired (or indeed rejected) by such a team? Does Human Capital accurately reflect the way your organisation thinks of people? Or would you rather a more personal approach was taken?

All views gratefully accepted – comments as always unmoderated, but please, if you disagree with someone else, do so respectfully…

I’ve followed Ed on Twitter for some time – and he recently responded to an invite for a guest post with a cracker on LinkedIn LIONS, which you’ll find here.  He’s kindly offered me the opportunity to reciprocate.

If we’ve not met before, I sit mostly on the intersection of recruitment and technology.  I’m a geek, I admit it.  I jump in on new apps and tools whenever I see them and I try to blog reviews of those I really like.  As we wind in to the year-end though, it seems appropriate to look back over the year and see what actually had staying power.  What delivered on-going value.  What’s still in use? So, in no particularly order, I offer you my geeklist for 2011.

1. Ifttt – Sets up social rules. Too many different profiles to manage? Ifttt can help. Blogged a review of this one here.
2. CoTweet – I use this as a desktop client for Twitter.  Most of the functions are not dissimilar to other players in the market, but there’s one differentiator I love – the conversations. I bring up Ed’s profile, I can see our Twitter history. That conversation we had about keyword spam back in May. What other app for Twitter gives you that?
3. Xydo – news curation and delivery service. Part automated, but influenced by the networks you build as an individual. Best personalised news service I’ve found, blogged here!
4. Evernote – The ultimate note taker.  I use it to hoard favourite tweets (delivered here automatically by Ifttt), to make meeting notes, to hold photos as part of a mobile project stream. Brilliant.
5. Buffer – rather than flood your followers with all the articles you read on the train each morning, space them through the day. Combine with Xydo for excellent results! Review here.
6. WordPress – my blog platform of choice. My needs are simple, so I stay with the hosted version – I’ve checked out others and not yet seen a reason to consider moving.
7. DropBox – My files, anywhere. Backed up in the cloud, backed up to each machine I install it on, deletion controls (which I only found after this episode!!). Ace service.
8. Zovo – bigger cloud backup. I use DropBox for working files, Zovo for long-term cloud synchronised automatic backups.
9. Bit.ly – always was good, but the enhancements this year allow for custom short-links. Instructions here.
10. Aerolatte – just because I’m working at home, doesn’t mean I put up with crap coffee. This helps. A lot.

I hope you see something new to enjoy. Likewise, if you want to offer up suggestions of your own, please do! Personal recommendation is my favourite form of discovery.  If you have questions for me, or just want to see what I find next, Twitter’s best. You’ll find me here.

I hope you’ll excuse me if the quotes aren’t completely precise, I hope they’re close enough to do the originator justice – feel free to correct in the comments.

Twitter makes you like people you’ve never met – Facebook makes you dislike those you already know. Greg Hadfield on evolution of Social Media

Recruiters are judged on cost per hire / time to hire. Value is measuring Quality of Hire. Andy Hyatt on measuring returns

The war for talent is over. Talent won. Lucian Tarnowski on the future of talent

I want a SCART socket for social media. Stephen O’Donnell on connected data platforms

• A clear and direct manner, firm but polite
• Less than 2 hours before a response was visible
• A link to back up the response from PepsiCo

The bit I really love though, is the link. It doesn’t go to a marketing or PR statement elsewhere on the corporate site. It goes to an independent site with a reputable history. An unconnected third party. Someone your watching public are more likely to trust.

Can you think of anything PepsiCo could have done better? I can’t!

One of the main learning points for those algorithms will be the accounts that people have manually reported for spam in the past, so by playing an active part, I’d hope I help improve both my personal experience of Twitter – and the quality of the platform as a whole.

For my part, I tend to report the following types of account for spam:

• Those who Follow/Unfollow instantly, just in the hope of bringing themselves to my attention.
• Anything that spams a whole bunch of individuals (usually iphone giveaways in my case. No idea why).
• Those that tweet nothing but promotional sales material AND @mention me without good cause
• Any application account that causes my own account to tweet without my express permission.

The last is probably the one that annoys me the most, but I guess it’s actually slightly off topic for this post.  Returning to the point, my friend (she’ll identify herself in the comments if she wants!) says no – she feels everyone and every business should feel free to use Twitter as they wish.  I’ll accept that, provided those actions don’t deliberately downgrade my experience of the platform.

What I’d like to do now is update this post with my thoughts – but before I do, I’m going to throw it out there…. I being unreasonable?