We’ve been doing a lot of work with investment banks recently.  A common feature within all of them, is that they all ban (or at the very least severely limit access to)  facebook and other social networking sites, usually on the grounds of ‘productivity’.

The ‘banning’ of course is done by senior management, mostly Gen X or babyboomers.

Working with these groups, most would agree that an organisation has three types of ‘capital’  it can draw upon, and which help add to its ‘value’. These are:

• Financial (money and assets)
• Human  (talent and skills)
• Social or Network ( connections with others, whether they be colleagues, partners, consumers or just ‘contacts’ which have some value)

To a Baby-boomer and, to large extent a Gen Xer like me, this network capital is represented by a contacts list or address book.  It’s who you have lunch with, who you can pick up the phone up to or who you might know at a social or business function.

But for Gen Y  (and increasingly Gen X through networks such as LinkedIn) this is now also represented by online social networks.

So why ban facebook  when it increases social/network capital which we know has considerable, even if intangible, value to an organisation?  It’s illogical and I think the true reason is poor performance management.

If organisations truly manage outcomes, then why should they care if someone uses facebook for two hours a day?  You never know, your organisations next big deal/idea/strategic relationship might just come from within these networks.

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