5 ms·

But "social" was the whole mantra of business, a decade or two ago. Still is... "open space!" We are all going to "collaborate" endlessly into ever higher hei

But "social" was the whole mantra of business, a decade or two ago. Still is... "open space!" We are all going to "collaborate" endlessly into ever higher heights of achievement. "Social" was being integrated, per force, into the workforce. And... real productivity dropped, and people became stressed out. Facebook et al. aren't at odds with the contemporary corporate workplace. They just exemplify what a crap policy it is. Imagine being forced to be on Facebook 8, 10, 12 hours a day, while trying to actually accomplish something. That's what much of the contemporary workplace has become at major corporations with which I'm familiar. Am I bitter? A little... more than. Because they kept telling my my trouble concentrating in such environments was my fault. Whatever you think of social media, such workplaces have not earned the right to express any opinion on the matter.

gaius 10y ago
A couple of companies I have worked for have tried company social networking e.g. with Yammer or Tibbr. It doesn't work because companies are fundamentally not social. Like, am I suppose to follow my manager, and his manager, and her manager? Do I have to "like" what they say even if I know it's complete nonsense? Will it be noticed if I'm the only one that doesn't? Can I ever post an honest status, or comment on anything? Is my "friends" list being used to judge me? Does my "engagement" with this project, which was mandated by the CEO, affect my annual appraisal, because you can bet it's tracked. And it doesn't help that the software itself is universally bad, if it were ever exposed to the public internet where people had a choice to use it or not, it would sink without trace...
- VLM 10y ago
  I suspect OP was making fun of the open office fad where interrupting my debugging flow by hearing the finance clerks arguing about workload when posting accounts receivable forms or whatever will magically make my code 100x better. Or if I stand up and read from the book of Knuth on the topic of the evils of the bubblesort, that will motivate the salespeople to sell sell sell. Or at those open offices that are as quiet as libraries used to be, the off the charts sarcasm level displays that nobody works together with anyone at all, which is kinda sad and sterile working environment. At a large company I worked at they tried discussion software but once the shine was gone, out of 150K people you'd have like 10 people who actually posted and on this web discussion board thingy and the content was all filler. Sometimes funny filler, but filler none the less. Imagine the sadness of a HN with only 10 participants.
- parasubvert 10y ago
  " It doesn't work because companies are fundamentally not social." I really have to disagree with this. Social media can be essential in a company that is widely geographically distributed and needs to collaborate, such as a technical sales field with different offices and R&D groups. Really depends on incentives.

gaius 10y ago

A couple of companies I have worked for have tried company social networking e.g. with Yammer or Tibbr. It doesn't work because companies are fundamentally not social. Like, am I suppose to follow my manager, and his manager, and her manager? Do I have to "like" what they say even if I know it's complete nonsense? Will it be noticed if I'm the only one that doesn't? Can I ever post an honest status, or comment on anything? Is my "friends" list being used to judge me? Does my "engagement" with this project, which was mandated by the CEO, affect my annual appraisal, because you can bet it's tracked. And it doesn't help that the software itself is universally bad, if it were ever exposed to the public internet where people had a choice to use it or not, it would sink without trace...

VLM 10y ago
I suspect OP was making fun of the open office fad where interrupting my debugging flow by hearing the finance clerks arguing about workload when posting accounts receivable forms or whatever will magically make my code 100x better. Or if I stand up and read from the book of Knuth on the topic of the evils of the bubblesort, that will motivate the salespeople to sell sell sell. Or at those open offices that are as quiet as libraries used to be, the off the charts sarcasm level displays that nobody works together with anyone at all, which is kinda sad and sterile working environment. At a large company I worked at they tried discussion software but once the shine was gone, out of 150K people you'd have like 10 people who actually posted and on this web discussion board thingy and the content was all filler. Sometimes funny filler, but filler none the less. Imagine the sadness of a HN with only 10 participants.
parasubvert 10y ago
" It doesn't work because companies are fundamentally not social." I really have to disagree with this. Social media can be essential in a company that is widely geographically distributed and needs to collaborate, such as a technical sales field with different offices and R&D groups. Really depends on incentives.