Networks and workplace freedom

I have just renamed this blog to reflect the issues I've covered in my new book, The Future of Work. Collecting material ahead of two speaking engagements last week it was clear that events with an impact on our working futures are happening constantly so I want this to be a living document featuring developments that I think are relevant to the changing workplace.

Some of these may seem surprising. What, for example, does the news that a former Guantanamo Bay inmate now includes his former jailer as a Facebook Friend have to do with work? I think this shows how people are connecting with each other today at levels that are challenging the controls and expectations placed on populations in the past.

Imagine back in December 1914 if British and German soldiers fraternising in no-man's land been able to exchange their Facebook and email details, organising a "let's go home" group on Facebook, for example.

You think it couldn't happen? I'm sure some EMI marketing executives had similar thoughts when Jon and Tracy Morter, a couple living in Essex, decided they would orchestrate a Facebook campaign to ensure that their favourite song by Rage Against the Machine, became the Christmas number one single (see augmented reality blog below).

People didn't just vote for the song, they dug in their pockets and bought it, such was the bloodymindedness of a section of the British public.

Much of the corporate sector has become increasingly controlling in the way it runs business. Employees are often forbidden to talk to journalists about their work without referring queries to press offices. But attempts to create workplace firewalls simply will not work in a world of Twitter and Facebook.

How will China's standoff with Google pan out? It's too early to say but the struggle for communications democracy is important not just for our personal freedoms but also for our freedoms in work.

Snooping on Facebook - right or wrong?

As an employer should you be snooping in to the kind of things people are saying about themselves on social networking sites? As an employee, should you be worried about the things you put there?

My answer to the first question would be "no." Not that my views are going to influence either question because we know that employers are looking at these sites, often disapprovingly, and that employees, therefore, should be cautious about what they say there.

I don't thing it is any more of an employer's business wandering uninvited on to a social networking page as it is in to an employee's home. If I want to have a dartboard on my wall with a photograph of my boss attached to it, that should be my choice.

Wig and garters

Equally if I'm a high court Judge and I find that wearing my wig and garters enlivens the experience in my bedchamber then that too is my business.

Today, however, I am reading about a police officer who has been refused promotion because of the information he posted about his gay lifestyle on the Facebook social networking site.

The police officer, Inspector Chris Dreyfus (a little bit of irony here), was denied a promotion when it was discovered he had been warned about the Facebook content by his current bosses, the British Transport Police.

I noticed that the Daily Telegraph report mentioned that he said on the site he was interested in men and looking for "whatever I can get." To the dozing Telegraph reader, most of whom will have never been anywhere near Facebook, that revelation might sound alarming.

In fact the "looking for" item is a category in the profile section and "whatever I can get" is one option in a multiple choice although I notice that option seems to have been recently removed.

Multiple choice

Equally there is something there that allows you to mention your political persuasions. Oddly the multiple choice options do not include "socialist." So my political views are listed as "other." If you think that these revelations tell you anything about me, think again. I hate the idea of backing the party of government which is why I often vote Liberal although I have given advice to the Conservative Party and thought Gordon Brown was a good chancellor. If there was a box entitled "queer stick" I would probably tick that, and no, that does not mean "gay."

In the box marked religion I had nothing much to say and so much to say at the same time. Baptised C of E, married in church, didn't have kids Christened, blames religion for most of the problems in this world, thinks, however, there is much that is good in the teachings of Christ and in other religions. My Facebook entry on religion, therefore, was "Dudeist" for many months. Now it is: "Orthodox Dudeist." Thank God (whoever he or she may be) that I don't have an employer.

Should these ramblings, or those of Inspector Dreyfus, be presented as a reason for denying us the right to practice our professions? Does it say something about our professional judgement? Not one bit. Professional judgement has nothing to do with personal opinions.

Fluorescent pink jerkins

Were I the editor of the Daily Telegraph, for example, the readers would get all the right wing prejudice-filled coverage they needed and more. My journalists would be blasting away at the cabinet from every vantage point. Parish councils and women's institutes across the land would sleep safely in their shires.

I would campaign for civil liberties while offering my DNA for a voluntary register. I would stand up for rural plot-lines in the Archers, the Countryside Alliance, village post offices and Delia Smith. And I would defend the right of gay policemen to wear fluorescent pink jerkins if that is their want.

Snooping on employees in this way is tacky and discriminatory. Promote Inspector Dreyfus and judge him on his abilities to enforce the law as a senior policeman. That's what really matters.

For more on social networking sites and employment read this.