Water Cooler

Social Networking: The Employment Law Revolution That Wasn't —

There's been a lot of anxiety provoked (and money made) predicting a "parade of terribles" in the workplace as a result of social networking sites and employee blogs. While there is no doubt that these sites provide additional opportunities for employees to be distracted from getting their work done, I contend that not all that much has changed.

Employees that are wasting their time on social networking sites today were gossiping at the water cooler in yesteryear, and the solution is the same: thoughtful policy implementation and vigilant managerial oversight.

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Guest author Gary M. Gansle is a partner in Dorsey & Whitney's Labor and Employment practice, based in the firm's Silicon Valley office. Gary has a highly successful track record litigating employment-related claims on behalf of clients, and provides expert advice and counseling with respect to a wide range of employment law issues. He has established a nationwide training practice, conducting programs for managers and employees on employment-related topics such as "Managing within the Law" and "Preventing Harassment and Discrimination in the Workplace." Gary is also a contributor to Dorsey's Northern California startup blog.

While there are clearly some updates to how we manage the workplace, in context I don't think it is as revolutionary as many doomsayers would have us believe. The implications of social networking fall into three categories: pre-employment, during employment, and post-employment. Below is what I see as the key considerations.

Pre-Employment

I recommend against using social media to screen applicants because of the risk of inadvertently obtaining information that cannot lawfully be taken into consideration in the hiring process. However, if you are using social media to screen applicants, consider these steps:

• Do so consistently, rather than pick and choose who to screen.
• Have a low-level, non-decision maker screen first to filter out any protected class information that is inappropriate for decision makers to consider. Then have them report out only what can be lawfully considered.
• Don't friend applicants on Facebook to access non-public information.

During Employment

Consider adding new language to existing policies, such as your technology policy, code of conduct, harassment and discrimination policy, and confidentiality policy. The types of specific modifications to consider include:

• an unequivocal policy statement that abuse of social media can be grounds for discipline, up to and including termination.
• an express prohibition on disclosure of confidential and proprietary information and trade secrets.
• a directive that employees should keep company logos or trademarks off their blogs or profiles, and a request that employees not mention the company in commentary unless for business purposes (and then only with prior approval of the company).
• a prohibition on employees posting or blogging during business hours, unless for business purposes pre-authorized by the company.
• a request that employees bring work-related complaints to HR before blogging or posting about such issues.
• a prohibition on posting false information about the company, its employees, customers, affiliates, or business partners.
• a general instruction that employees use good judgment and take responsibility, personally and professionally, for what they publish online.
• a requirement that all employees who identify the company in their blog include a disclaimer that the views expressed are those of the blogger, not the employer.

Post-Employment

In this category, the single biggest issue is recommendations. Companies should consider updating their written policies on providing references (which should already limit such information to last position held and dates of employment) to include a prohibition on managers giving LinkedIn recommendations to employees or former employees unless pre-authorized by HR.

I suggest this not because I thrill at the Big Brother quality of it, but because of the risk of defamation claims for references that go wrong, and the fact that manager statements - even statements not on company letterhead or made through a formal corporate communication - are attributable to the company and may be inconsistent with legal positions confidentially being taken by the employer.

With the addition of some of these common sense updates to existing policies, your company can feel confident that the "revolution" of social networking won't have nearly the devastating impact predicted by most commentators.

Photo by Jason Pratt.

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Screensavers were meant to be protective shields that kicked in when a computer stood idle. It’s not true anymore because screen technology has hopped ahead. We don’t actually need them  to shield our screens from phosphor burn-ins.

Screensavers today may be as useful as a brick from the Berlin Wall. But just like that plain old brick’s value as a memorabilia; screensavers also have managed to retain their charm.

The protective use of screensavers has given way to their use as fun tools. Then there is its Hyde-like face, when a Trojan hiding inside a screensaver file wrecks havoc on an unsuspecting computer.

But we like the good. So let’s not focus on evil cousins like spywares and malwares. Instead let’s look at ways how to use screensavers not only entertainment tools but also as utilitarian ones.

Screensavers make a fleeting appearance, as long as a computer stands idle. Even for those blink and its gone seconds, a screensaver can be put to a lot of creative uses. Let’s see how far the creative side of screensavers is being stretched.

A Temporary Shield To Secure Your Files

Walking away from your desk for some water-cooler chat? Secure your computer with a password protected screensaver. The password protection applies only if you use a log-on password.

Read the Microsoft Help post to know the simple 3 steps to protect your files by using a screensaver password.

Make Your Own Desktop Art Gallery

Last year’s post on 5 Ways to Make Your Own Screensavers took a look at some easy and quick ways to create your own screensavers. Once you know the How-to on screensavers, creating personalized screensavers is easy. There is no lack of ideas.

How about a family photo album? Or a chronological series of your child’s growing up photographs? One of the best uses I have seen is a screensaver being used to display a child’s artwork. In short, if you think of ways to use a photo, you can put it on a screensaver.

You can set up photo feeds using Photo Feeds for Google Photos Screensaver. Photo feeds are streams of images from sites that support photo feeds and viewable in Google Photos Screensaver.

Loopy is a Flickr based screensaver that displays the newest photos that gets uploaded on Flickr. You can click on the photos and directly go to their Flickr photostream.

Jog Your Memory With A Reminder

While putting together this article, I came across a mention of how an elderly person used a screensaver as a pill reminder tool. Neat!

When we can have to-do pop ups from task management apps, why not use a screensaver for the same? If you know how to put together some text in MS Paint or even PowerPoint, you can use the simple graphic files as a reminder screensaver.

Five Seconds Of Motivation

The same technique applies to piling up a bunch of motivational posters and using them as screensavers. The previous link on how to make a screensaver shows the Picasa way to set it up with Google Photos Screensaver.

Alternatively, you can set up a word cloud with a bunch of motivation triggering life goals and put it as a screensaver.

Get Digg-ing

Why not put a screensaver to do the Digg-ing for you? Digg Labs has five real time Digg tools which can be downloaded as screensavers for both Windows and Mac. The five tools are –Arcs, BigSpy, Pics, Stack, and Swarm. All of them let you visualize real time Digg information on the screensaver. You need to have an internet connection and Adobe Flash 9 installed to enjoy them.

Your Own Blogosphere Telescope

Just like the Digg real time visualization tools, the blogosphere also has some of its own screensaver help. Twingly is a blog search engine, but it’s the cool Twingly screensaver that takes the eyeballs. Here’s a review which talks about the 24X7 blog feed streaming feature of the screensaver. You get to see what’s getting updated in blogs around the world with the visual help of an interactive 3D globe. You can rotate the globe and see blog postings in different corners of the world.

The 2.09MB download is Windows only.

The Same For RSS Feeds & Twitter

Screensavers are also available for free download which can enhance your desktop by giving you real time updates of RSS feeds and Tweets.

Screensavers & RSS feeds

RSSMore is a free screensaver that works like a feed reader by letting you subscribe to RSS/XML feeds. You can keep the background blank or set it up to display photos from picture albums. RSSMore cycles through the feeds and displays the feeds in boxes framed against the background. You can also click on any link and go to the source, directly from the screensaver.

MappedUp displays a world map of green dots. RSS news is tracked and displayed as interchanging red and yellow location dots on the map. Red dots are for updated feeds while yellow is a bit more passive feed. By rolling your mouse over the dots, you can read the titles of all new articles. By clicking a title, you jump to the author’s website to read the entire article.

RSS Saver is another screensaver with RSS preview and visualization features. It displays RSS feeds one at a time.

Screensavers & Tweets

Geocodearth (now in public beta) combines Twitter, Flickr and FFFFound to bring you location wise Tweets and images.

Twitsaver is another cool photo screensaver you can try out that takes in photos from Twitter’s public timeline.

Some Random Wikipedia Browsing

The Wikipedia screensaver loads random pages from the online encyclopedia. The time delay between each page load can be set by the user. The Wikipedia screensaver can also be configured to disable any process running in the background, like IE and Firefox.

It is a small 123KB download, but it requires .NET 1.1 or later to run. It is tested on Windows XP and Vista (only for admin account).

As Your Desktop Weatherman

When you read about the really cool weather app called YoWindow, you can miss the mention of its use as a screensaver. YoWindow gives you a virtual glimpse of the weather outside by taking in the data from the METAR stations network. It displays an image of a landscape with the kind of weather you may be having.

I came across a screensaver download from Inrumor.com which also is a very good example of how to package your website’s branding into the utility of a screensaver. Inrumor is a site that talks about lifestyle, celebrities, auto industry, Hollywood, artists, politicians, and technology.

The screensaver in jet black gave me the local weather and a 2 day forecast. Following the theme of the website, it presented a scrollable stream of news feed on what it calls – rumors. A calendar and an analog clock rounded off the features.

Screensaver & Learning

Even the brief spell of a screensaver can be used to drill some bytes of learning. Check out a few examples at the links below.

SOHO Screensaver from the European Space Agency lets you watch spectacular, almost real-time images of our Sun. The images come from ESA’s Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO). The screensaver comes in Windows and Mac OS X versions.

Screen-o-mania has some great screensavers. The Cities of the Earth 3D Screensaver finds popular mention. The screensaver shows highlighted cities with information about its population and country names. And you can add your own city.

Check out this simple screensaver which tries to promote hand hygiene using a screensaver.

And let me end with a brief mention of National Geographic Custom Screensavers which inspire care for the ecosystem. It’s available for both Windows and Mac.

Have you put screensavers to out of the ordinary uses lately? Let us pick up some more ideas.

Image Credit: mr.gibbs and newtype2011

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SuperGlued: The Can't-Miss Live Music iPhone App for SXSW 2010 —

If you've ever done SXSW before, then you know about the music here in Austin. If you haven't, let us tell you now - there's a lot. But how do you find it all? And how do you find out which show is best? And how do you share blogs, photos, videos and tweet about it all at once?

SuperGlued, which has integrated with both Foursquare and Twitter, will be your your one-stop shop for the more than 1,200 bands that are set to invade Austin over the next week and a half.

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SuperGlued is a can't-miss app for navigating SXSW without having the schizophrenically switch between iPhone apps just to keep up. With the release of a new version of its iPhone app, users can find shows, buy tickets, tweet and read what others are tweeting, post photos and check-in to Foursquare. And if you find yourself at a lame show, the new "Where My Friends At" feature will let you know what shows your friends are seeing so you can ask them if it's any better.

A new partnership with BandsInTown not only helps the service find all the shows going on, but lets you buy tickets from your iPhone. And for special events, like SXSW, Superglued brings all the shows together into a separate event listing.

Aside from the iPhone app, the website lets you continue to interact around the shows you've seen long after they've ended. Rush Doshi, who co-founded SuperGlued with Gawker CTO Tom Plunkett, told us on the phone the other day that SuperGlued is the water cooler for everyone to gather around and talk about that crazy show they saw last week.

"The idea came about from going to a lot of shows and wondering about who else was there - it just seemed that there was no one place to go to see what everyone else thought," said Doshi. "We built SuperGlued to be that place."

SuperGlued connects with Flickr, YouTube, Blogger, Wordpress and Tumblr, so when the shows all over, you can both add and check out block posts, videos, set lists and more from the website.

Doshi told us that they have made extra efforts to make sure that all of the SXSW shows are list, but if a show isn't there, users can add shows via the website. With the number of shows springing up in parking lots and backyards, this is a must-have feature. In the near future, the company is looking to include show-specific merchandise in its iPhone app, letting you browse and even order show merchandise from your phone and having it shipped to your house.

Beyond SXSW, SuperGlued is available around the world with nearly 200,000 show listings, many of which it pulls from BandInTown and Last.fm, in 140 countries. So, wherever you are, get off your duff, download the iPhone app and go see some live music.

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