At Deutsche Bank we had a saying for idea testing. “Can you monetise it?” Systems can be like a salesperson. If you are going to buy into the value add argument would you employ Facebook to distract hundreds of employees? Facebook and it’s fans claim it brings many advantages to business. What is the opportunity cost of those employee Facebook hours? Could you spend them on something else?
I’ll be controversial on this one and say it should be disallowed. The ratio of distraction to value-add is heavily skewed against giving staff access in the workplace. The coal face reality is that this thing isn’t getting stuff done. It’s not creating massive networking opportunities that the same time spent working on other social media could. It’s not high quality content with high IP value. It’s not producing widgets. It’s not paying you any money. It sucks time. Time is money.
I can’t see an easy way to monetise it from a business perspective. Sure you can pick up some networking value but it’s limited relative to those Facebook Hours better spent on hard core CRM systems such as Salesforce.com that drive workflow, lead generation and networking. These systems create business opportunity. Alternately, I’d put those Facebook hours into using a system like a Wiki to collect employee ideas on business improvement, planning and sales strategy.
