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Shel Holtz
Communicating at the Intersection of Business and Technology
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Companies blocking employees from reading RSS feeds

I dream of a world without prejudice. Wars will be a distant memory. No child will go to bed hungry. And organizations will trust their employees enough to let them subscribe to RSS feeds.

In case you hadn’t heard about it, some companies have begun blocking RSS feeds at the firewall. The rationale for this short-sighted, counterproductive bit of paranoid stupidity ranges from bandwidth worries to productivity concerns. The first I heard of this was from a reader of my monthly email newsletter. I’ve been cajoling my 2,500-or-so readers to switch to RSS for well over a year now. This particular reader wrote back saying he’d be happy to give RSS a try but for the fact that his company has banned RSS.

There’s an amusing irony in the fact that next year companies will shell out over $6 billion for applications that monitor and/or block web surfing, instant messaging, keystrokes, and now RSS, according to an IDC study.  A TopTech News article paraphrases Websense VP and General Counsel Mike Newman:

The rationale behind monitoring employees, according to Newman, is that a computer at work is a corporate tool for enhancing the employee’s productivity. Because some people abuse that privilege by sending personal e-mail and viewing movies during working hours, employers feel they have little choice but to monitor what their workers are doing.

Which leads me to a comment we recieved to the “For Immediate Release” podcast from an IABC colleague who informed us that his company has a policy against watching or listening to any streams at work due to bandwidth concerns; they also are forbidden from downloading MP3 files. So employees here can’t determine whether a citizen marketer has made a negative commercial about their company and posted it to YouTube or listen to a business-focused podcast during lunch. Brilliant. And all to protect precious bandwidth.

If somebody calculated the benefits of letting employees watch/listen to streams or download MP3s, a business case could made for (gasp) increasing bandwidth. But many companies haven’t figured out yet that today’s web isn’t the same web around which they built their in-house capabilities back in 1999 or earlier.

On the flip side, there’s Todd Cochrane over at Geek News Central, who recounts this tale:

I have worked for years in an organization that takes surfing to unauthorized sites very seriously and they have long laundry list of sites you cannot get to. I once e-mailed a commonly used utility to my work account and because the file was a executable in a zip the system admin went nuts on me. After I showed him the application was on the authorized use list he calmed down, but I have had to deal with my share of Internet Police.

I’ve covered the reasons this philosophy represents the height of cluelessness, but to recap…

  • An employee’s home computer is a personal tool, but it gets used for work all the time. Work-life integration is the name of the game today. If you expect me to take work home, then expect me to live part of my life at work.
  • The measure of productivity is how much work is getting done, not how much time an employee spends on non-work-related activities. Employees will stay late, come in early, or take work home. They won’t simply let it slide. Nobody wants to lose his job so he can check sports scores on ESPN.
  • Nobody ever got fired for checking sports scores at work in the New York Times. The web is the new newspaper.
  • Telling employees you don’t trust them—any of them—is a great way to earn some of the lowest engagement scores in the business world. (Trust is a key determinant of engagement and commitment.) Companies with large populations of highly engaged employees earn double-digit growth. Those with large populations of actively disengaged employees earn zero or negative growth. So which is preferable: locked down computers and no growth or open access and double-digit growth?

Ahh, there’s more. Go back and read some of my earlier posts on this topic. I don’t have time for the full-on rant. I want to focus instead on RSS.

If companies are concerned about the amount of time employees are spending on the web, RSS is the answer, not an extension of the problem. RSS allows employees to aggreagate all the content they follow in one place, scan it for items of interest, zero in on the ones that are most important and get back to work. Further, have any of the companies blocking RSS feeds studied the nature of the content to which employees are subscribing? I’d be willing to be at least some of it is work-related.

Currently, to subscribe to RSS feeds would require most employees to install software (verboten) or use aggregator web sites (blocked). But what happens when IT adopts Internet Explorer 7 and Windows Vista, both of which will have RSS functionality built in? Will they disable bookmarking features in IE7? Sadly, I’m guessing they will.

How much productivity have companies gainedbased on information and knowledge gleaned from the Internet? Websense will never tell you; it’s not in their self-interest to study the reasons companies shouldn’t block Net access. But I’ve heard hundreds of tales of blogs, feeds, web pages, and message boards producing answers to questions and solutions to problems that would have taken far longer to obtain through traditional channels.

Are there some employees who will take advantage of a company that allows unfettered Internet access? Of course. They should be managed by exception. Spam and viruses can be addressed without draconian policies that keep employees from accessing content.

My wife likes to say, “Before the Internet, we were all stupid.” If Websense and its ilk have their way, there are a lot of companies hell-bent on remaining stupid.

04/15/06 | 28 Comments | Companies blocking employees from reading RSS feeds

Comments

  • 1.Shel I've always been in your camp on this subject. A few weeks ago I blogged about how I frequently send a YouTube video or blog link to a contact within an organization because they really need to see it, only to hear back that they can't. Their internet police have blocked access to most blogs and 'non-work' site.

    Josh Hallett | April 2006 | Winter Haven, FL

  • 2.At the company where I formerly worked, bandwidth was a concern (due to poor IT management), so I wrote an article telling people how get the information they needed without bringing the network to a crawl.

    I suggested they load up podcasts and music on mp3 players at home if possible and to use their computer's hard drive to listen to music rather than streaming it.

    The article not only helped highlight the company's lack of bandwidth, but it provided solid information on streamlining one's own use of podcasts, video, etc., as well as introducing new resources for employees to check out.

    Britt | April 2006

  • 3.Thanks, Josh. The question, in light of Websense and its peers flooding the marketplace with fear, how do we get the message to the powers that be in order to help them understand that their Internet policies may be causing more harm than the risk they're supposedly addressing?

    Shel Holtz | April 2006

  • 4.Shel I hate to say it, but perhaps we fight FUD with FUD. Instill fear that they might miss something important by filtering the internet.

    Josh Hallett | April 2006 | Winter Haven, FL

  • 5.Fear is a helluva motivator, Josh, but the question is one of tactics. How do we get this message in front of senior leadership and management? Websense and its brethren have the juice, the credibility, and research (promoted through press release distribution) to grab attention. What've we got? I've been a single voice in the wilderness on this issue for years. Perhaps this is something the Society for New Communication Research can undertake...

    Shel Holtz, BC | April 2006 | Concord, CA

  • 6.Shel, you know that I'm living this pain right now--I'm the person who commented about my company's crackdown on streaming media. I think that you know that I am firmly on the same side of this discussion as you.

    Please add these couple of points to the discussion, because they provide more perspective.

    Point 1: "Just add bandwidth" is too simplistic. As a journalist, I was taught to "follow the money," because that was at the root of just about every story.

    Without sharing company-confidential information with you, I can say that I work for a company that is directly impacted by the automotive market.

    That market has been extremely competitive in recent years. You have read about the plant closures, layoffs and potential bankruptcies impacting competitors of my company. We have remained profitable only by a tremendous program of cost-reduction and improved efficiencies--in addition to the introduction of well-selling new vehicles.

    IT has done its fair-share of cost-cutting, by only moving forward with projects that clearly show immediate benefits to the organization. IT also does not have the luxury of adding any additional bandwidth without showing the immediate benefits to the organization.

    We communicators understand the value and efficiency that can result from social media and more responsive systems. So does management to some degree. But when it is trying to stretch an already tight budget to address many competing worthwhile organizational needs, "getting by" with slower bandwidth is more appealing than cutting heads.

    Point 2: Our crazy regulated business environment adds complexity and inflexibility to the mix. I work for a financial services subsidiary of an automotive manufacturer. The subsidiary falls under review by the FDIC (Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation) that regulates and monitors United States banks and banking--as well as state and federal regulations regarding privacy and protection of customer information.

    As auditors from those entities review our operation, our decisions are shaped to a degree by their audit findings, and a desire not to be found noncompliant.

    That accounts for some of the policies regarding access to information, and even what type of equipment employees use. For example, we take out the CD burners commonly installed on PCs, to prevent an employee from copying confidential customer data for non-business purposes.

    Of course, people who want to steal information can find other ways to do it. I've had that conversation with our former Chief Information Security Officer and others. They are trying to balance the feedback they get from auditors and management with the everyday realities they see in the workplace. The cautious tone toward letting employees share information comes, I believe, from a concern about guarding that information.

    As the sole full-time internal communicator in the company, I'm advancing the awareness and support of social media slowly, but I believe methodically. I often feel like a lone voice in the wilderness, even if I can point management to excellent discussion points such as the ones that regularly appear on your blog and in FIR.

    I'm enlisting the support of other key areas of the business--including IT. I'm always looking for hard statistics and case studies that show the payback for investing in social media. I wish I had more, and I hope to track it within my company.

    Tom Keefe | April 2006

  • 7.Thanks for your observations, Tom. Of course, "Just add bandwidth" IS simplistic. The business case, however, is not. And while immediate benefits may be hard to identify, immediate threats are not. As Josh noted, FUD can play a big role. What risks face an organization whose employees cannot find negative and potentially harmful references to the company? We know how important a timely response is these days; not even knowing the conversation is happening will create far too long a lag in reacting.

    You're right, of course, that any employee can steal data. Who needs a CD recorder when you've got a $35 USB flash memory stick? There are other ways to address this issue than Big Brother tactics that leave every employee -- including the top performers -- feeling that the organization has no trust or confidence in them.

    Shel Holtz, BC | April 2006 | Concord, CA

  • 8.As I said, I agree with your viewpoint. If you could see me right now, you'd probably mistake me for Rainman, as I go from nodding my head up-and-down in agreement with you, to shaking it furiously from side-to-side as I think about the upward climb ahead. All the time muttering to myself, "Social...social...social."

    Tom Keefe | April 2006

  • 9.Oh, I understood that, Tom, and I'm grateful for your support! I was just hoping to give you a bit more ammunition to use in your quest!

    Shel Holtz, BC | April 2006 | Concord, CA

  • 10.Shel, what you are asking for is someone to define the "killer app." RSS technology is nothing new, but most companies haven't had the moment of buy-in.

    Fortunately, since receiving a feed is free, it won't take a whole lot to reverse the gears. And when you give them the app, your work is almost done.

    I've been knocking down some doors at media outlets I deal with, and I did it with a branded RSS-reader. Once I explained the benefit, the news types had no trouble talking the IT tribe into making it work.

    I am curious to see how far "RSS-phobia" will spread. Will firms outlaw IE7 because of the live bookmark feature? Do they know about live bookmarks in Firefox, or the Sage plugin?

    We've got work to do, peeps.

    Ike | April 2006 | Birmingham

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