I recently gave a presentation on social media to a local non-profit and had the opportunity to review some of the latest statistics when it comes to the use of social media.
Frankly, I knew that there has been a shift away from Facebook for some younger people but even I was surprised by the
Today, cross-posted on the LXBN site, I reflected on the biggest legal developments of the first half of the decade. I am reposting it here, but my sincere thanks to Lexblog for the support it has given me over the past 8 1/2 years and for the opportunity to provide some insight on its
2007 seems like yesterday.
And yet, eight years after I started this blog and over 1800 posts later (and a Hall of Fame entry), I’m pretty sure 2007 WASN’T yesterday.
So for this year’s anniversary post, I thought I would capture what I think are some of the biggest storylines from the last eight years.
For employers, the power of the Internet is pretty scary at times.
The latest meme to hit the Internet won’t change that view.
Sometime yesterday (Sunday) afternoon, someone tweeted a picture of a worker from a Target store.
His name is “Alex”. We know this because of his name tag. And apparently he’s cute and
If it seems that there are more social media apps out there than ever before, you’re not going crazy. No longer do employers just have to worry about Facebook. Rather, a whole host of sites has popped up leading to new headaches and challenges for employers.
I’ve talked about this before, but Law360 published a
Have you heard of Justine Sacco?
If you’re on social media, it was hard to avoid over the weekend. She was the public relations professional who posted an offensive tweet on Friday before boarding a plane to South Africa.
Never mind that she had only 200 or so followers when she made the tweet. By the time she got off the plane, a firestorm had erupted on Twitter that was arguably unlike anything that we’ve seen in some time.
Boing Boing has a detailed account here, but in case you missed the story, here’s the basic outline:
As she embarked upon a long flight to Africa, PR staffer Justine Sacco issued this tweet. At best a darkly ironic self-deprecation that could never fit into 140 characters, it resulted, within bare minutes, in an internet-wide scandal. Even as the plane is still in the air–Sacco presumably oblivious–there [was] a hashtag, #HasJustineLandedYet, a parody account, @LOLJustineSacco, a fake movie poster, and, God help her, a whole entire New York Times article, replete with a stunned disavowal from her corporate employers.
The meme was incredible and fueled by the fact that she was on a long flight — with no internet. By Saturday, Sacco was fired.Continue Reading Offensive Tweets and Twitter Justice: The Tale of Justine Sacco for Employers
Last week, I had the opportunity to speak to the Connecticut Technology Council’s IT Summit.
The panel discussion, entitled “Social Media: How to Manage Your New Digital Workfoce and Your Workforce ‘Friends’”, explored the impact of social networking on how businesses communicate with customers and employees, and how to reconcile the need for security and control with the desire to remain flexbile and competitive.
My law partner, Glenn Cunningham, served as panel moderator and Christopher Luise, executive vice president at ADNET Technologies, LLC joined me.
One of the questions that was raised during the IT Summit was one that I sometimes hear. Paraphrasing, the question was essentially this: “I think social media is just a waste of time for employees. There is no return on investment for it. And what am I supposed to do with a young employee who spends four hours on Facebook each day?”
There’s a lot of subtext to a question like this and it would be easy to discount the person’s views as someone who just “doesn’t get it” with social media.Continue Reading “My Employee is on Facebook Four Hours a Day. What Do I Do?”
Today, I spoke at my firm’s semi-annual Labor & Employment seminar on seemingly everyone’s favorite topic lately: social media. We had a huge crowd today and had a lot of audience participation. I know I speak for my whole department in thanking those who attended.
One of the topics that several people spoke to me
It may be hard to remember, but during the first year of the blog in mid-2007 to 2008, there was barely a mention of social media and its impact in the workplace. Just a single reference in January 2008 noting that with sites like Myspace (!), “employees from around the country can share information instantly, making it much easier to figure out if there are trends associated with the layoff that may give rise to a lawsuit.”
Then, in September 2008, I talked about how employers were considering using those sites to “screen” potential candidates for employment. I suggested against it at the time. But what I also suggested back then is that employers needed to recognize the sites’ growing influence.
Yes, some college grads put some boasts on their site, but Facebook has moved so quickly into the mainstream that many people are using it as a communication tool, far removed from their college years.
That was just five years ago, but really, it feels so much longer than that.
Flash forward to today. 91 percent of American own cell phones. 63 percent of those owners use their cell phones to go online, mainly through apps used on devices like the iPhone. As a September 2013 Pew Internet study found, a majority of Americans “now owns a smartphone, and mobile devices are playing an increasingly central role in the way that Americans access online services and information.”
Social media accounts for a significant portion of that usage. 89 percent (!) of 18-29 year olds online use social networking sites. Even among 30-49 year olds, that percentage is 78 percent.
But what sites are they using and how?
You’ve no doubt heard of YouTube, LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. Maybe Foursquare and Google+ (poor Google). And if you’ve been following the blog, you know that Instagram (a photo sharing site) and Vine (a video sharing site) are growing in influence as well. But what about everything else?
When I spoke to a group of people last week, a few wore their ignorance of social media as a badge of honor. But in my view, employers ought to understand the scope of the issue; they may not need to use all the sites, but it’s only when you understand how much is out there that you begin to appreciate the scope of the social media issue.
Take, for example, Whisper to which I referenced yesterday. A few people responded, “huh?”
Continue Reading Snap(chat), Kik & Whisper: What Social Networking Apps Your Employees Are Using Today
For many years, employers set up firewalls at work that prevented employees from going to certain websites.
Didn’t want your employees shopping at Amazon? Block the site.
Didn’t want your employees posting updates at Facebook? Block the site.
But here’s the reality: Smartphones have made those firewalls meaningless. Information, as I’ve said before, wants to