More Companies Ban Social Networks

Companies continue to clamp down on social networking sites at work. Nearly 20 per cent of organizations surveyed by security vendor MessageLabs blocked social networking and dating sites in February due to concerns about employee productivity and malware.

"Organizations need to raise awareness about the risks of these sites," says Paul Wood, a security analyst with MessageLabs. IT departments, he suggests, need to update electronic use policies to reflect newer Web 2.0 technologies. "Some of the policies are not up to date."

Wood says it wasn't always clear how malware entered users' computers or networks as a result of using social networks. However, he cited a case where a user visited a fake MySpace page that served a pop-up ad that looked like a Microsoft software update. Clicking on it took the user to an illegitimate site that tried to install malware over JavaScript.

The report echoes the concerns IT leaders expressed in a recent survey of consumer technology by CIO. Nearly 10 per cent view social networks such as Facebook and MySpace as the biggest consumer technology threat to their organizations. Around 18 per cent cited consumer-based e-mail like Hotmail, Yahoo and Gmail as the greatest threat to their organizations.

However, Wood says, "It's not just about e-mail anymore. People need to know how to conduct themselves on blogs, IM and social networks."

If IT institutes electronic use policies that educate users about the sites they visit, better security will follow, Wood argues. "It's more of a management issue than a technology issue," he says.

-C.G. Lynch

When Bigger Means Better

Can you see your way to wasting less time?

One new study says yes: Organizations that upgrade their employees' standard-format monitors to wide-screen displays can realize productivity gains equivalent to 76 extra workdays a year per worker, as well as annual cost savings of more than US$8,600 per staff member. (That math assumes a staffer who makes US$32,500 annually.)

The study, called "Productivity, Screens and Aspect Ratio," was conducted by the University of Utah and sponsored by NEC, a maker of computer monitors.

Ninety-six university staffers, faculty and students, broken into three different computer aptitude sets-novice, intermediate and advanced-participated in the study, which took into account the time needed to complete set spreadsheet and editing tasks, editing performance and monitor preference, among other factors. All three groups were significantly more productive using 24-inch or larger wide-screen monitors (1920x1200 resolution, or larger) compared to 18-inch displays (1280x1024 resolution), according to the research.

The study found that upgrading workers' 18-inch, standard-format monitors to 24-inch wide-screen displays cut the average time to complete such tasks by more than 30 per cent.

Additional findings include:

Large wide-screen or dual-monitor configurations are better suited for work that involves multiple documents or applications.

Twenty-four-inch wide-screen displays are better suited for text editing than both single standard-format (17-inch and 19-inch) and dual standard-format (17-inch and 19-inch) monitor configurations.

Dual wide-screen configurations in 22 inches or larger are better for spreadsheet editing than single wide-screen or standard-format displays.

Net annual cost savings of using 24-inch wide-screen monitors in place of standard-format, 18-inch monitors, including electricity and monitor costs, is roughly US$2.1 million a year for 250-employee companies and about US$4.3 million for firms with 500 staffers.

-Al Sacco

Theory of Efficiency

It's not enough that mid-market IT shops have to feel slightly envious of big-company IT departments and their access to seemingly unlimited resources, tools and staff. Now an analysis of recent data trends shows that IT departments in Fortune 1000 enterprises are more productive and effective service providers than mid-market counterparts-and it has nothing to do with the amount of staffers or money spent.

"The staff-versus-budget argument is based on a false assumption-it improperly assumes that resources committed to IT are used efficiently and effectively. However, in the majority of IT organizations, they are not," writes Hank Marquis, director of IT service management consulting at Enterprise Management Associates, in the report "Are IT Budgets Too Big?"

Conventional wisdom holds that large companies' IT shops are more effective since these companies have deeper pockets. That logic is incorrect, according to Marquis. He suggests looking instead at the "user-to-IT-worker" ratio in midsize and large companies. "Larger companies of the Fortune 1000 support almost three times-2.9 times, to be precise-as many users per IT staff member than mid-market companies," he writes. This makes "mid-market IT organizations only about one-third as effective as their larger Fortune 1000 cousins."

The problem? "It's not more staff that's needed," Marquis concludes. "Existing staff must become more productive." The report offers several tips for improving productivity.

Manage human capital. Invest in training and new skills for staff and actively measure worker performance.

Improve business process management. Research process-oriented frameworks like ITIL, Six Sigma or formal IT project management.

Service customers efficiently. Encourage IT staff to communicate with end users in order to understand their needs.

-Thomas Wailgum