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The
Corporate Double-Edged
Sword! …
by Paul
Shearstone Email
is to process … what the internet is to information and business… Too Much!
On
any given day when I start work, I can look forward to my morning ritual of
sifting through one or 500 email spams I get due to my e-address being harvested from
articles I write that find their way out onto the net. Most of the spam I receive
are from caring individuals genuinely concerned about helping me with a serious
problem I didn’t even know I had – I think you know what I mean.
To
be fair, I should point out that surprisingly, my wife also receives similar
emails from people just as concerned about her ‘appendage’
[one she and I have yet to locate] but one, nonetheless, our internet friends
are quite convinced they can help her improve-upon if and when we ever find it! People
from Nigeria too, it seems, really need my help. It’s true! They sound so
regal, being that approximately 110% of them say
they are
members of real Nigerian royalty and all. And I believe them! They say they
want to give me money. How nice. In their unmitigated benevolence – rivaled,
I’m sure, only by that of Mother Teresa’s - they want to put one or [insert Mike Meyers Dr Evil accent here]
four-hundred-million-dollars – give
or take, - into my personal bank account… for a price of course. And there are
women, each morning, I don’t know and have never met who feel the need to
E-communicate with me using opening lines like “Hello my dearest darling”… where were they when I was dating?
It’s
not that I don’t have adequate spam protection software to filter out the three
legitimate emails I wanted to receive from the hundreds obsessed with my ability
to…ah… ‘maintain’… I do. The
problem however, is simply that anti-spam software needs ongoing education and
re-education, but even with that, often legitimate email inadvertently falls
into the ‘Spam’ or ‘Spam Suspects’ folder requiring people like me, with
absolutely no problem at all - honestly! -
to take the valuable time to go through all the
spam. What a pain. Everyone
knows how frustrating and how much time is wasted in our lives everyday dealing
with unwanted emails, never mind the vigilance required to ensure we do not make
the dreaded mistake of opening that one email, perhaps the one that appears so
benign and legit - “Hello my dearest
darling” comes to mind - but is neither. The virus or worm I'm
talking about is malevolent and infectious. And that is when the real waste of
time begins, sometimes lasting for days, as you scramble to rehabilitate your
computer, if, in fact, that option still even exists. Sometimes it does not and
data is lost forever! Like
it or not, email and the internet have changed us and at times, they are no
friend to business. Email has become the ‘medium of choice’ for avoiding
simple human interactivity. Inside the office, now vast amounts of information
is sent and received by way of e-blasts that require no human-to-human contact
but nevertheless, demands no small price in wasted productivity, time and
profitability by workers, required to view and/or even respond to them. For
example, is there someone in your office [more often in management] who, despite
their sincere altruistic intentions, nonetheless, waste so much valuable
corporate time because they feel compelled to share motivational stories,
sayings and pictures they come across, with the rest of the company? Nearly ever
office has one. Get back to work! It
is true, if you are not at your desk, the boss assumes you are not working. On
the other hand, plunking away at your keyboard is not quite so obvious, is it?
Think about how much corporate time is wasted these days by employees who
believe they are masters at multi-tasking. You know who they are. They surf the
net, send copious personal emails both in and outside the company – on company
time – in addition to the text-messageing
and ongoing MSN chats that sit open all day on their desktop, beside the work
the company is paying them good money to get done. Sadly, there is nothing funny
about that. If
you are still sitting on the fence about the seriousness of this issue, here are
some interesting, recent stats to consider: · More
than 60% of companies have disciplined - and more than 30% have terminated - employees for inappropriate use of the Internet. (Source: The Center for Internet
Studies) · 27%
of Fortune 500 companies have battled sexual
harassment claims stemming from employee misuse and abuse of corporate
e-mail and Internet systems. (Source: American Management Association)
· 70%
of employees admit to viewing or sending adult-oriented
personal e-mail at work. (Source: NFO Worldwide) · One
research firm, International Data, estimates the 30
to 40% of employee Internet use is not work related. (Source:
International Data Corp.) · Dow
Chemical Co. fired 50 employees and disciplined 200 others after an e-mail
investigation turned up hard-core
pornography and violent subject matter. (Source: Associated Press) · 25%
of employees said they spent 10 to 30 minutes a day surfing non-related work
sites, 22%, said they spent 30 minutes to an hour, 12% said they spent one to
two hours online, while 13% admitted to spending more than two hours a day.
(Source: Vault.com) · Of
more than 3,400 executives surveyed,
64.1 percent said that their companies have a formal office policy in
place to help manage employee use of the Internet. (Source: Management
Recruiters International) · 37%
of employees report that they search for jobs, 45% make travel arrangements,
and 11% play online games while at work. (Source: Vault.com) · 46%
of online holiday shopping is happening at work. (Source: Nielsen//NetRatings)
Bottom
Line: Long
after the humor subsides from emails that imbue circumspection for one’s
athletic performance or lack thereof – and - long before that Nigerian
cheque ever arrives in the mail, the gravity of the potential dangers email and
the internet bring to bear on business, must be taken seriously. The fact is,
the internet is a double edged sword. One side cuts though the competitive
forces helping companies realize success, profitability and peak performance.
The other, has the potential to
cut a company right off at its knees. On a lighter note, as sure as you can
be that Bill Gates is not going
to send you five bucks, you can take what I’m saying, to the bank… just not the
bank recommended by our E-Nigerian friends! lol
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