04
June
2009
|
10:55 AM
America/Los_Angeles

Twitter and Facebook In Corporations: Set The Users Free!

[This is an excellent comment that I'm republishing as a guest post. It is in response to Twitter and Facebook In Corporations: IT Professionals Are Often The Most Reactionary To Change]

By Gary Wilson

Set the users free! Let them do their stuff and take accountability for it. When it all goes bottoms up and the branch or department go offline, then they will wise up.


People will always try to find ways around even the most stringent restrictions. Restricting users is akin to treating them like children.

It is a business and indeed almost a social necessity today to be somewhat IT literate. Not allowing people to discover the boundaries naturally, will only result in them never taking responsibility for behaving in an acceptable manner in their work environment.

I personally give all users administrative rights and have worked in a number of restrictive environments where I could not. In my experience, without fail, the restrictive environments ALWAYS had more problems.

For the last 4 years, I have never had to deal with a spyware, virus or malware incident on our internal network and everyone has admin rights to their local machines.

Allowing people to be master's of their own destiny and work tool I feel educates people, more than restrictions. Resulting in a more informed workforce and a harmonious network.

Have we not learnt yet, whatever restrictions are put in place will either be circumvented by the users or the evil doers who are trying to get to them.

China is probably the biggest example of this. As with everything, where there is a will....