Facebook Etiquette - the 7 Golden Rules

I got a phone call from my Mum the other night to ask me if it was okay to ignore a friends request in Facebook. My initial reaction to this was – ‘you have Facebook?’ once I had recovered from the bombshell that my mum was voluntarily engaging with technology I got to thinking – what are the etiquette rules of Facebook?

I did a little Google investigation and these are the acceptable rules of facebook.

1. You do not have to accept an invitation to become friends with someone you don’t know. Facebook is not a competition to see how many random people you can collect as friends.
2. Do not write your status updates in local dialect i.e. ‘I cannae wait’ – this is not big or clever!
3. Do not post anything on your Facebook that you would not want your boss or mother to read - you don’t know who your friends know.
4. Do not poke for the sake of poking!
5. Do not Facebook after a few drink – you will only regret it tomorrow.
6. Consider other peoples feeling before you upload a picture of them. If you look stunning and your friend looks like they has just been dragged through a bush backwards the nice thing to do would be to keep that one for your private collection – or at least ask before you post it!
7. Application overload, most people do not care that you are a Mafia God in Mafia Wars, have reached Mastery level 2 in Strawberries on Farmville or that you have made a peach cobbler on Cafe World and we definitely do not want to get a copy of your star sign every day. If there is an option not to publish you app update please do so.

Buzzed off!

We all know Google rules the world but have they hit a bit of a blip in their latest venture with Google Buzz. Claiming that it will be the ultimate in social networking seems for the moment to have fallen slightly short of the mark.

Google Buzz has now been active for just over a week and has already had several issues. The biggest concern for many was Google’s decision to give users an automatic group of friends based on the people they most frequently e-mail – unless you knew to change the setting in your profile this list could automatically be made public. Declaring to all who you correspond with most (this would not be a great feature if say you were a Chelsea player). This issue has been resolved quickly and Google now only suggest people who you may want to be friends with, but this was not a great start for Buzz!

This issue pales into insignificant for me personally compared to Google Buzz Mobile which updates your status and using a Google map will also show where you are updating from. This would not be a massive issue if it only showed your trusted contacts where you are but it shows anyone updating their Buzz anywhere nearby. Of course Buzz does ask if you want to share your location data when you are setting up your account but there is no way that most people could anticipate that their location would be broadcast to the world at large, I know I didn’t!

This is the first big public attack that Google has faced and their War Room is going to have to step it up a notch if they want to come out of this smelling of roses. People take their privacy very seriously and will only tolerate these sorts of issues for so long. However the public loves Google and the great apps which they have given us over the years, they will be forgiven for this blip.

Our report card for Google is ‘Must do better next time!’

To outsource or not outsource that is the question.

In the current financial climate more and more companies are paying-off their permanent in-house IT staff in favour of outsourcing to one of the many IT companies capitalising on businesses need to reduce wage bills.

Benefits of outsourcing.

Reduction in wage bill

Think how often do you use your IT team? Do you really benefit from having an IT Pro sitting in your premises all day every day claiming a large salary and requiring costly training to stay up to date with the latest technologies? By outsourcing you will almost definitely save money on your IT budget. Don’t be fooled into thinking that to really know and understand your IT infrastructure that your IT support has to be in-house – it doesn’t!

Increase in staff concentration on your Core business.

By outsourcing your IT needs your staff will be able to fully focus on your business without being distracted by IT problems. If there is a problem you just pick up the phone and call your IT helpdesk and then the problem is transferred to your IT company to resolve, this can often be done remotely so you won’t have the inconvenience of having IT engineers in your office!

Access to vast knowledge base.

When you choose to outsource your IT you are more often than not committing to a company with several IT staff. At Alchemist for example we have 9 engineers and 4 account managers so you are not buying into one persons knowledge you are actually getting the benefit and knowledge of 13 experienced IT professionals.

These are just a few of the main benefits of out sourcing your IT. You also have to consider the Innovation, specialized skills, increased service levels and value added services that an external IT company will introduce into your existing IT network - Can you afford not to outsource?