Social Media - Give it a job to do and you might just get the point.

I'll be the first to admit that it took me a while to "get" Twitter. I'm afraid I was in the camp that couldn't see any value in short, 140 character status updates and I still speak to a lot of otherwise internet minded people who don't get it either. As far as I am concerned Twitter and other forms of social media only really come into there own when you link them into a definite purpose. It's true no one is really interested in what you are having for dinner or what supermarket you happen to be shopping in, so updating for the sake of updating is pretty pointless, (although I have been guilty of it myself). 


The true value of Twitter comes once you understand that it is simply another form of extremely rapid communication. Give yourself a purpose whilst using it and you will begin to understand the power you have at your fingertips. Let me give you an example. I am planning to write my dissertation next year on the employment law issues raised by the rapidly increasing use of social media in the workplace. To this end I recently tweeted a request for Twegals (legals who tweet), to point me in the direction of useful articles on the subject. The volume of material that I was able to find in an extremely short space of time was startling. As was the willingness of people to help. Within a day I had over 20 useful articles written by law firms and HR professionals from the UK, Europe and the US. I also repeated my request through LinkedIn and received a similar response. In fact I posted my request over 2 weeks ago and the articles are still flowing into my inbox. This instant connection with professionals in your chosen field is both unprecedented and incredibly empowering. So the next time someone says to you that they don't understand the point of social media ask them to try carrying out a specific task using it, they might just "get it" if they do.

Keeping mum - The equality act, equal pay and gagging clauses

During my employment law lecture last night a piece of the 2010 equality act was discussed which I was surprised I had heard so little about. Since October 2010 clauses in an employment contract which seek to prevent employees from discussing how much they are paid with one another are no longer enforceable. This makes absolute sense if you think about it. If one of the aims of the equality act is to prevent inequality in pay based upon sex, then how can that possibly be enforced if employees are prevented from discussing their pay with colleagues? It is quite easy for a firm to get away with inequality in remuneration if no-one is allowed to discuss what they are getting paid.

What really surprised me was how many people piped up that they had such a clause in their contract, or that they had been told "off the record" that it was forbidden to discuss salaries within the workplace. Many of these people are currently working within law firms. The vast majority of these people had no idea that this change in the law had occurred as it has gone largely unreported. 

To mark International Women's Day why not make a point of passing this little nugget of information around? If we are ever likely to achieve equal pay for women in the workplace surely we must first achieve transparency on pay.

Can you hear yourself think?

I had an interesting piece of work kindly passed on to me recently, following a shout out I posted on LinkedIn. I was asking for people to provide me with any links to articles on the potential dangers/disadvantages of social media use in the workplace for my dissertation topic. I had some excellent responses but one of the most thought provoking was sent to me by Adrian (Mac) Mackay, managing partner of Duncan Alexander & Wilmshurst. 

He was discussing the potential problems of "permanent partial attention" within organisations. This is the phenomena whereby information is passed backwards and forwards between individuals at such a rate that nothing ever gets dealt with in a single-minded and focused manner. We all know the scenario where one employee e-mails another and copies in two or three other members of staff. They then respond, also copying in two or three members of staff who may or may not be relevant to the issue being discussed. This basically sets off a cascade of e-mail traffic which serves to accomplish little other that clogging up everyone's inbox.

The increase in the use of social media, if not managed correctly can also contribute to this "information overload" effect. Communications and networking utilities such as e-mail and Twitter have the power to transform our lives for the better if used correctly and with a certain level of discipline. I feel, however, that used incorrectly they threaten to overwhelm us in a sea of spam, jokes, motivational sound-bites and social media updates. Just think, when you get in to the office in the morning how long does it take you, once you have switched your computer on, to actually start work on anything productive? By the time you have opened all your e-mails, checked Twitter, LinkedIn and any blogs you follow is it time for your mid-morning coffee? As the influence of these media in our lives grows we need to learn new disciplines to control the rate at which we process all this new information. Next time you send that e-mail just think again before you copy in your boss, your secretary, your solicitor, your social media consultant,etc. Do they really need to see this piece of information or am I just adding to the digital cacophony?

For more information and assistance with using social media in a productive manner you could do worse than contact ‘Mac’ at Duncan Alexander and Wilmshurst, Management and Marketing Consultants – www.daw.co.uk

Help the homeless, just do it somewhere else please

On a topic completely unrelated to either law or IT, (not bad, only 3 posts in and already off-topic),  I couldn't help but make a small comment on yesterday's news that The Conservative Westminster Council have decided that "soup runs" actually contribute to the plight of the homeless and have decided to ban them. 


At first glance the argument that free hand-outs of hot food somehow exacerbate the already desperate plight of the homeless, might seem to some people to contain a form of anti-intuitive logic. The argument goes that the soup runs somehow prevent those in need from seeking help through official channels that might more effectively lead to them getting off the streets.


Call me cynical but I feel that the truth of the matter can be seen a bit more clearly when one examines closely exactly what has been said. Daniel Astaire, cabinet member for society, families and adult services, said: "soup runs on the streets in Westminster actually encourage people to sleep rough in central London, with all the dangers that entails." 


So let's get this straight, what you are saying is soup runs cause increased levels of homelessness. To me that's a bit like saying "more people turn to smack because they know they can get free needles from the needle-exchange". Perhaps if we were to read Mr Astaire's statement a bit more like this? "soup runs in Westminster actually encourage people to sleep rough in Central London (ie Westminster). Does that make things a bit clearer? 


More than 250,000 people find themselves homeless every year and the reasons behind this number are varied, complicated and tragic. The way Mr Astaire refers to the soup runs as "encouraging" people to sleep rough makes homelessness sound like some sort of undesirable lifestyle choice like smoking or binge drinking. The fact is that more than 3,600 people slept on the streets of London during 2008 and the vast majority of these people did so because they, through fear or desperation, had no choice. To try and ban the lifeline of a hot meal to these people because it might attract more of them strikes me as the most cold-hearted form of nimbyism I have heard in a long time.