GenXmanager: Leadership for the Generation X Manager

Facebook has been riddled with some kind of trojan and/or spyware the past few months. Here are some ways to help limit your exposure to these nasty critters. 

1. Make sure you are running anti-virus software. McAfee and Norton are used in corporate environments. For home use I suggest Avast (which is free) and PcTools Spyware Doctor Spyware+Anti-Virus version (it is $20).
2. Install Spyware protection. My favorite is PcTools Spyware Doctor. If you purchase the Spyware+Anti-Virus version you’ll get great virus and spyware protection in one package.
3. Never click on any link (YouTube or otherwise) that looks suspicious. If a friend’s status update is a link or a link with a phrase such as “This is funny” or “You gotta see this” or “This is a great article”…DO NOT CLICK IT. Here are some examples of suspicious links.
4. Only click on links where your friend gives context to the link. For example, here are a few examples that I would say are “safe”.
   

   Note the verbose description to give context to the video and the embedded video itself.

   

   Note the link and the embedded article.

5. If you click on a link from within Facebook and you go to a page (even if it looks like YouTube, the New York Times, CNN, FoxNews, etc.) and the page asks you to download a “new version of Flash” or to download anything else…DO NOT DOWNLOAD.

Don’t be scared to click on links, just be smart about it. Post a status update asking your friends to give their links and YouTube videos context so you can decipher the bad links from legitimate ones. 

If you did click on a suspicious link, then you will need to IMMEDIATELY purchase spyware and virus scanning and removal software. I found PcTools Spyware Doctor to be particularly effective. 

Don’t take this lightly! These are insidious critters as some are keyboard loggers and capture EVERYTHING you type including bank account numbers, user names, passwords, credit card numbers, and perhaps sensitive work information as well. Everything captured gets sent to pretty seedy individuals who I’m sure do not have your best interests in mind. 

 Practice safe Facebooking!

As I flip through the prime-time cable news channels I see and hear the following:

“Small businesses and entrepreneurs create jobs.”

“The small business is the backbone of our economy.”

If you’re skeptical take a look here, here, and here.

At a conference I attended a few weeks ago I heard the phrase “the nobility of business” and “business as a noble profession”. We may not think of business in this fashion given the unethical practices that capture the headlines. However, for every negative story there are likely thousands of honest, hard-working entrepreneurs realizing their dreams and creating jobs. How is an entrepreneur’s drive and passion a noble profession? It’s pretty simple; they contribute to economic growth. Here’s an overly simplified snapshot of the process.

1. The entrepreneur creates something, a business, that did not exist.
2. This new business invests in itself, purchasing supplies, equipment, advertising, and other items.  This investment is good for banks, suppliers, and the workforce.
3. The entrepreneur fills a need or a want satisfying customers.
4. As the business grows, jobs are created and the entrepreneur hires employees.
5. These employees now have jobs to help support themselves and/or their families.
6. The employees who now have jobs can spend more to support themselves which in turn creates demand for products and services; spawning the need for more jobs.

Though the motivation of an entrepreneur may be to earn a profit and for personal fulfillment, the results they generate are noble indeed. Assuming that business is conducted in a ethical manner (and most entrepreneurs are ethical), the means justify the ends and the ends justify the means.

I am going to start vlogging. I’ll be publishing on both YouTube and Viddler to reach two different audiences. When I do produce a video, I’ll post it here on the blog as well.

My vlogging topics will be:

• Leadership
• Business
• Social Media
• Organizational Issues
• and other items of interest to me (which I hope will also be of interest to you)

My first video is below. I turned my blog post ‘Top 10 reasons to ban social media access at work‘ into a video. I hope you enjoy. The style of all my videos will likely be the same. Let me know if you have any comments or suggestions. Enjoy!

Please note: This video and my previous post about banning social media are sarcastic rants. I actually believe organizations should embrace, not block social media.

Social media will have far reaching effects on leaders and the entire concept of leadership. The traditional organization as a top-down hierarchy have been deteriorating for some time. However, vestiges of Weber’s bureaucratic organization remain (and for some organizations, firmly entrenched).

Social media focuses more on social networks and connections and less on formal hierarchies. This presents both a challenge and opportunity for existing and future leaders.

The February issue of the International Leadership Association featured an article by Arthur Jue titled, “Social Media, Leadership, and the Emerging Architecture of Change”. In it, he states,

In business leadership, social media helps to enhance culture, recruitment, innovation, customer relationships, operational efficiency, engagement, and ultimately organizational performance.

It connects employees in new ways that redefine traditional roles, eliciting greater freedom of expression and commitment.

What I see is that leaders must now be facilitators of the social network process. Leaders will need to motivate staff inside and outside of the their purview encouraging the use of social connections far outside the normal boundaries of the organizational hierarchy. The leader will be seen as a facilitator of connections and understand that informal social networks using social media are far more powerful than the information transferred within the typical chain of command. The power is not in the leader, but in the collaborative power of employees.

My dissertation for my Ph.D. in organizational leadership will deal directly with leadership and social media. I’m working with my dissertation advisor at the moment and within the next few months I will be defending my initial proposal.

As Warren Bennis said, “Leadership is one of the most observed and least understood phenomena on earth.” I’m taking on yet another facet.

I was part of a panel at the Gartner Portals, Content and Collaboration Summit yesterday (March 10^th). I was on stage with Jeanne Homl from NASA and Walton Smith from Booz Allen Hamilton. The moderator asked how many participants in the room worked for companies that ban social media access. About two-thirds of the audience raised their hands. After seeing this many hands go up, I had a change of heart.

I’ve changed my mind from my prior opinion. I now believe that organizations should BAN social media access.

Here are the Top 10 reasons why:

Number 10: Social media is a fad. Two years from now we’ll be moving to the next marketing or management fad.

Number 9: Social media takes control away from the corporation; and you can’t have that. Controlling the message is what it’s all about.

Number 8: Employees are simply going to goof off. They don’t do anything non-work related now like go to the water cooler, the coffee machine, or even the bathroom.

Number 7: Social media is only good for watching funny YouTube videos and knowing what a former classmate is eating for lunch. Social media, please, what a waste of time.

Number 6:Social media serves no business purpose. Your salespeople are top notch. Come on, will teaching them how to use LinkedIn really make them more effective?

Number 5: Employees simply cannot be trusted and will likely say things in social networks that will become bad publicity for your company.

Number 4: Millennials expect access to social media at work. Hey, Millennials, wake up! It’s a bad economy. Be happy you have a job.

Number 3: Your team already shares knowledge effectively and adding another technology to the mix is simply going to make it more confusing.

Number 2: Social media will simply bring viruses and Trojan horses into your network. For security reasons alone it should be banned!

And the Number 1 reason for banning social media access:
Your competition isn’t using it, so why should you.

Please note: This article was written with a bit of sarcasm and a dash of wit. In reality I believe social media should not be banned but embraced by organizations. Consider this post “reverse psychology” for those organizations that ban employee access to social media.