Facebook a waste of time?
An internet filtering company scored a PR coup in Australia recently when it released survey results claiming that Facebook cost business $5 billion a year in lost productivity.
Putting aside the vested interest of the source, which sells a web and email blocking system, the data had managers scrambling to introduce restrictive policies.
Our company’s response was a sensible one. Employees were notified their web and email use was being logged; excessive private use of the internet in company time was not acceptable; and suspicious web behavior would be reported to department managers.
I received the first of those reports today, showing the web usage of two employees (the others were all clear). One appears to be addicted to Facebook and the other to MySpace.
Without even speaking to them, I’m satisfied there has been no abuse of work time. The employees in question are both highly productive, meet all their deadlines and voluntarily contribute extra time.
Like many such things, a flexible response is better than a rigid one.
Gentoo Linux
My Kanotix installation died on me last week. It was a self-inflicted fatality; suicide in other words. I went for over a month without upgrading the distro, just updating software instead.
I finally went ahead and the system shock was all too much. I had the black screen of death, but it locked on me and I couldn’t even get a command prompt. I know I could have repaired things using a live CD, but I took the opportunity instead of a new experiment.
I have read plenty of times that Gentoo is a serious Linux diehard distro with nothing user friendly for newbies and novices. Although not very computer literate in the developer sense, I’ve been using Linux now for two years and thought it was time to take the plunge. (more…)
Toddlers on a leash
Taking toddlers anywhere is risky business, especially twins. They love to explore. They also have a talent for splitting and toddling in opposite directions. An exasperated parent then has to make a snap judgement about which toddler to retrieve first.
Putting them on a leash seems to be sensible risk-management, hazard-reduction procedure.
Using Illustrator to make web pages
I’ve created many web banners and buttons with Adobe Illustrator, but this week was the first time I’ve used the program to create a complete web page.
The client, Grevillea Gardens, provides self-contained accommodation in Bright. Clearly there was no need for a content management system and most standard templates are too dull to consider.
Using Illustrator we worked together to adjust fonts, pictures and colors to the client’s taste. Once complete, it’s a simple option to "save for web". The program creates an HTML page and images of all space, text, photos and artwork.
The only HTML editing I had to do was the background color, links, title and meta tags.
Illustrator probably isn’t ideal for dynamic sites, but in the tourism industry for a static brochure page it’s a good option.
Here’s another example, in which a poster was converted to a web page.
Telstra on the wrong tram
Political commentator Paul Kelly was scathing in his attack on Telstra’s new management this morning.
Kelly said on ABC Television the Telstra assault on government regulation is alienating all parties, driving down the share price, and has no hope of success.
I have to agree with him. I’ll go further and say it’s damaging the public goodwill that Telstra has worked hard to cultivate in recent years. I did some PR work for Telstra a while back, and they were committed then to improving their image in regional Australia.
The new American executives may be on sound economic ground, but their external communication skills and political acumen appears dodgy.
In years to come this will make an interesting case study in corporate communications.
Let’s go nuclear
Four Corners this week ran an interesting report on nuclear energy and whether it should be considered in Australia to reduce greenhouse emissions. Why not?
Even if someone is skeptical about greenhouse, they should acknowledge that nuclear power generation causes less pollution.
Fossil fuels are finite. So is uranium, but there is no immediate shortage threatening, as far as I’m aware. This is backed up here by nuclear engineer James Hopf.
The danger, of course, is a Chernobyl-type disaster. I have confidence in Australian authorities to implement better risk-management procedures than those that existed in Ukraine in 1986.
