Social Media in the Workplace

I recently attended a session organized by HRANS (Human Resources Association of Nova Scotia), PEI chapter. The speaker was Detry Carragher of Streamline Consulting, her presentation revolved around the power of social media and ensuring that companies develop policies to handle the variety of different questions that the use of social media in the workplace can bring. My main take-away from the session was a video that was developed by @equalman, based on the book "Socialnomics" by Erik Qualman.

If you're having trouble convincing others who think you don't need to use the tools that are out there and that they are just a fad. Don't worry, you are not alone. I've been preaching the benefits of both internal and external tools we have available to anyone that will listen. 

Get any doubters to give you 5 minutes of their time and show them this video. It's packed full of information and stats presented in a very compact and convincing manner that will hopefully change their mind. Some take more convincing than others but if you can get one or two key people in your corner they can help make the path alot clearer.

My Blog 1.0

Welcome to my first blog post. I’ve added comments to posts I’ve read and provided summaries of events I've attended the odd time, but this is the first time I’ve taken a crack at writing something on my own, so be gentle.

As hard as it is to believe, I've passed the 15 year mark with the public service. My career has taken lots of different twists and turns and I've had the opportunity to work and travel from coast to coast and meet and work with some amazing and dedicated people.

I currently work in HR with the Canada Revenue Agency in Summerside, Prince Edward Island. I deal mainly with staffing and have been heavily involved with student recruitment for a number of years. 

I'm fascinated by the explosion of social media tools and how they have become a part of our everyday life. I experience the struggles with how to best use the technology available to us everyday. I've been fortunate to have been given alot of flexibility by my boss to use and explore social media in my job. Twitter has become one of my best sources of information. By using a couple of hashtag's like #w2p and #cpsr you can find a wealth of information about what's happening across the country and have been able to connect with some amazing people.

I've been inspired by people like Nick Charney and Dave Eaves along with many, many others. If you don't follow these guys I'd encourage you to do so, check out their websites at http://www.cpsrenewal.ca/ and eaves.ca. I was lucky to be able to sit down for a few hours and chat with Nick. I left knowing that with people like Nick promoting public service renewal initiatives we are in good hands and heading in the right direction. But there is still lots of work to be done.

To move ahead we need to be innovative and continue to push for the use of these tools. Public servants in BC were recently given permission to use social media tools where appropriate. Allen Seckel, head of the BC public service, stated; "You have to make sure people understand what's confidential and what would be stupid to put on any medium...whether it's Facebook or Twitter or a fax or a phone call." Was the implementation of email this big of an issue? 

Bottom line we have to be smart about when and how, but we are all human and mistakes will happen, we just have to make sure we learn from them.

I'm pretty sure that social media and web 2.0 technologies are here to stay. We need to spread the message that this stuff isn't scary and that it is just another tool at our disposal. Strive to find ways to use them to our advantage and encourage and embrace innovation instead of finding reasons why we can't.