As a public sector marketing consultant , (trying to desperately get government to start adopting web 2.0/social media) I find the recent Ontario government decision to ban Facebook on provincial public servant computers absolutely ridiculous, yet not at all surprising.
The decision comes as a result of the fact that public servants had supposedly been wasting time “socializing” on the popular social networking site during work hours…
Well why don’t we ban work telephones then? how about e-mail? why not put shackles on all employees while we are at it?
The fact is, employees that want to waste time will always waste time. Instead of banning Facebook, the Ontario government should have looked into how it can leverage it as a tool to engage its employees and increase productivity. I see Facebook as an ideal tool to get rid of government silos and increase horizontal cooperation within departments.
Mark my words. This decision will be reversed sooner or later. The government can’t keep running away, social media is here to stay.