It looks like the time has come to again raise the anti-blocking flag into the sight of those who advocate blocking rather than dealing properly with the issue. stopblocking.org is a clearinghouse for issues and information about removing the walls and describes itself as:
… dedicated to providing resources for those who choose to resist the irrational blocking employees from wide swaths of online content. It is a collaborative effort to document the benefits of providing access and answers to the concerns raised by fearmongers (not to mention the legitimate issues that companies can address with taking the draconian step of access restriction).
Started by communicator, Shel Holtz, stopblocking.org is definitely the place to go to get the latest information in the effort to enable you, your colleagues and co-workers open, appropriate and useful access to the online tools you need.
Working in a government town, the concept (and reality) of corporate firewall blocking access to all sorts of things is intimately familiar to me as I move from client site to client site. There are very few places I go that don’t implement blocking to some extent. It’s a constant source of annoyance and frustration to me, as I am prevented once again from accessing all the online tools I consider critical to my work.
The reasoning provided for the blocking, if you can find someone to take ownership of the policy, is often couched in terms of network security or nanny state-ing (“We’re protecting our workers” or “We can’t trust our people to not use these things in an inappropriate way”) or data security. To my mind, these are all spurious and represent an attitude that fails to treat people as adults while also failing to implement appropriate use policies that deal with these issues. They end up in the too hard basket and blocking is easier than dealing properly with the problems and issues.
The benefits of appropriately managed open access to all the resources your workers need are manifold – there are effects on morale, on ability and culture around knowledge sharing, on breaking down of silos and on development of learning cultures. Open corporate cultures where communication is both encouraged and facilitated are better equipped to cope with market change and are frequently more nimble in dealing with potentially showstopper issues.
Hat tip to Luis and Andy for bringing this to my attention.
{ 1 trackback }
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Stephen – you might want to fix the links for Luis and Andy P – they’re b0rked ATM
@Ric Crap! Fixed. Ta.