“Why We Won’t Work for You: Many bright, young minds elude large corporate employers. We will seek to gain an understanding from these individuals why the traditional corporate workplace, policies and social network lacks appeal. Discussions will focus on managing policies surrounding social networking in the workplace and how to effectively engage the commitment and maximize the contributions of this valuable corporate resource.”

The above quote comes from a blog post I recently read titled How to be a CIO in a 2.0 World.  The blog posting was written by Thomas Purves, who describes himself on his blog page as a Entrepreneur and futurist.  This particular blog posting was from his experience at a breakfast meeting with Toronto area CIO's.

These CIO's related that they are struggling with how to embrace the social media tools within their enterprise and attract and retain talent from the younger and net-savvy generation.  Many organizations in the US and abroad are having this same struggle.

I believe this situation is no different for Information Management and Technology (IM&T) professionals.  We need to understand these tools, how they work, what they can do for the enterprise and more importantly, understand their impact in the information lifecycle.  We cannot wholesale dismiss their use in the enterprise, but need to find out what need they may serve in helping provide a more collaborative environment in our enterprise, while ensuring that content that are records is handled appropriately.  Too many companies seem to take the easy way out and just block their usage by not allowing them past the firewall.

Some of the bullet points that were the notes from his conversation could be good advice for Information Management and Technology professionals:

• Enable rather than deny.  I've seen too many IM&T professionals take the side of the argument with many in the business world that social networking tools are just a total waste of time.  That certainly can be the case if they aren't used properly, but as suggested in the blog, we should balance those needs against the productivity and agility that can be gained by a proper implementation of some of these technologies. 
• Be a coach, not a nanny. This means the IM&T professionals need to learn about these tools and be able to coach their colleagues and organization leadership in how they can be productively deployed in the enterprise.
• There is no clean separation between working and social life.  This line is becoming more blurred every day.  My Facebook account (which I typically use only for social interactions with no business content as a general rule), is a mixture of professional and personal contacts.  Our colleagues need guidance on what is appropriate and is not appropriate for these social network sites.
• Trust your employees to do the right thing.  Give them some general guidelines and guardrails and then trust them.

Access Sciences will have a free webinar on Social Media and the Information Management and Technology professional on November 5, 2009 at noon CST.  We plan to cover the various Enterprise 2.0 tools, describe scenarios for their use in the enterprise and provide recommendations for the Information Management and Technology professionals to consider for governance around their use.  You can sign up for the webinar here.

The picture at the top of the above referenced blog says much about the mindset that many from Generation Y are coming into your organization with - If you want to achieve greatness, stop asking for permission.  If you give them the tools that are appropriate for enterprise use and guidelines on using them, they will achieve greatness.