The number of businesses that are blocking social networking sites in their offices is rising rapidly. According to research by Clearswift, 20% more companies are blocking access to social media sites, mostly because they are concerned about security and data loss. These figures come from a survey of employee and managers in the UK, US, Australia, Germany, the Netherlands and Japan.

But on the other hand many companies see social media as critical to business success, although few see it is a key to growth.

So we have interesting contradictions – banning its use in the office, seeing it as critical, but not seeing it as a key element in the growth of the company.

The big problem of course is the lack of control of social media has made businesses wary of it. Everyone can do it, and can use it in any way they want. The growth of fake accounts (where someone pretends to be someone else) is huge and hacking is beyond any doubt now out of control.

Worse, the research also found that the majority of managers believe employees are ignorant of security concerns with the view expressed that “Companies do not do education. People are oblivious – a lot of the time the IT policy is seen only when you join the firm.”

Personally my biggest worry about social media is what happens when one employs a young employee who thinks that updating her/his Facebook entry with rude comments about her employer is a reasonable use of company time. If ever there was education needed it is in the zone of “You work, I pay” – but some youngsters don’t get that.

(You can tell I’m getting old can’t you).

Tony Attwood