I've noticed that corporates are starting more and more to block blogs or 'personal pages'. I disagree with this on several levels but mainly on the "ooh don't let people use the internet as it make them unproductive" level. Hire someone to do a job, and if they can't do the job let them go. If they read blogs, write blogs, send personal emails, read the paper, have a smoke, or use MSN but still can do their job, so what.
Anyway that’s neither here nor their really. It's an annoyance and it will be interesting to see how as business changes how policy changes.
I've started sending friends who are blocked to bloglines. The only problem with bloglines is you can’t read the comments (almost as much a part of a blog as the original author posts) and you can't comment.
Reading comments is easy. I could add a recent comments feed (as many have done). Although this only has relevance I feel as part of the home page itself. As part of a feed, it lacks too much context. I could rewrite my Atom feeds to incorporate the comments, although I'm not sure this is how the feeds were meant to be used. I'm sure some one on the Atom project has raised this at some point and it will appear sometime.
I know with the Atom API/publishing protocol, that in the near(ish) future you'll be able to comment on blogs. So with Atom Feeds I foresee you will be able to read my blog, read my comments, and comment on my posts. At some point. You don't see the design on of the blog site which is a pity, and you don't get to see the non blog portions of my site (webcam, photo album etc), but the blog becomes transportable and unblockable.
Sure you can block my site and my URL. And you could block bloglines when you discover that. But as Atom and feeds become more universal, you won't be able to block every syndication site, every online feed reader. Even if you did you could still get it via email, via your mobile, via some medium. In fact all Bloglines needs to do is add a paid service where for a few dollars you can buy an Bloglines URL mirror and you can't even block Bloglines. Even if a very low percentage of the userbase did this, you would still have thousands of Blogline mirror URL's appearing faster than they could get blocked. Then someone would write some app or site which automatically hands you a URL that's not blocked and you are good to go.
The other reason blocking 'personal sites' is pointless, is that you can't. People will find a way around it faster than you can say 'blacklist'
p.s. If you are interested my feeds are available via autodiscovery or on my sitemap
1. stacey
I agree - people should be managed on delivery - not on time seen to be productive. Here is the deadline you agreed to - whether u do it with time to spare, rush it at the last minute - do it at work or a coffee shop - I don’t give a damn. Just get it done by the agreed date and with the acceptable level of quality. Treat people maturely and they will behave that way - treat them like children and they will behave that way. Spend time being a nanny instead of a business - you lose sight of strategic stuff and lose all the good people.
2. Adrian
And the more time you spend trying to block people the more unproductive time people spend trying to find ways around it.
3. Destructor
Yeah, that’s how I justify the vast amount of time I spend doing nothing- it’s not like I’m ignoring my work, I do everything they ask me to do, I do it quickly and well, and then I ask if there’s anything more I can do. They say no, I fuck about. Simple.
As for the blocking of personal sites, sdc is blocked from my work, and it is an annoyance having to use other sites to get around the block.
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4. Sara
My last workplace had a “timer” on the PC’s. You were only allowed an hour a day to view websites that they didn’t really want you to see. For instance.. SDC. And my daily comic strip site. Who cares if I look at that? Everyone in my dept. was having fits due to this. In my field, sometimes you need to look up strip clubs online, at work, to determine if you want to write them or not. But I agree, if you still get your job done, but are on the internet most of the day, then rock on.
5. pogo
I look at blogging as my “fag break” at work :-)
6. Francesca
My firm recently banned external email. I find this irritating, given that I do not use my work email for personal items (and therefore have no spam).
In addition, workers who have access to games, email and so on tend to be more productive than those who do not.
7. Adrian
I find that annoying too. We all have personal lives. It’s impossible to arrange our personal lives entirely after work. We need to sometimes make use of a work phone for a personal call or send personal emails.
Blocking this doesn’t make employees more productive, but more annoyed.
I find it much easier keeping work and personal emails entirely separate. Means I can ignore one or the other if necessary. I think this idea of the corporate having this much control of our lives will change as companies mature.
8. billyfrombelfast
Blocking this doesn’t make employees more productive, but more annoyed.
Absolutely. It’s treating your employees like kids.
All of us (well, most everyone I know who’s office-based) do unpaid overtime to help out, meet deadlines and generally perform our job functions. That’s understood. It should equally be understood that the trade-off is trusting your staffers not to waste an entire day online.
9. jason
You people are ignorant. yes, i’m a network admin, and i do screw around at work.
The problem is that my business that i work at is in the banking industry, and there are soooo many times that people are waiting in line while my employees are playing games at pogo.com. Also, all the spyware that is coming in not to mention all the viruses that my antivirus gateway device catches from people surfing for personal pleasure, or which are being downloaded by pogo.
Company equipment is for company purposes. not for you to check your pictures of your nephews kids which were sent to you from their computer, and who knows what the fuck they have in the way of malware and or virusi.
If you dont have enuff to keep you busy, then you should work out a way to work at home and meet your deadlines. Dont bring your personal shit into my network. especialy if there is a chance of infection or malware.
Idiots.
10. Adrian
Interesting how you confuse ignorance with a different perspective.
I presume you never used a work phone to make a personal call? Or had a coffee or smoke break at work.
Not even that, that makes a difference. You hire me to do a job, not prescribe to me how I’m going to do this job. Successful firms treat their employees like adults, not children.
Also, by having arbitrary people deciding what should be blocked very often you block the good with the bad.
Good places of work, accept the idea that people have lives beyond the office. Lousy work place try to prohibit this. To their detriment.