An unwelcome blast from the past popped up on my computer screen recently: a "blocked Web site" message from my company's IT department. I was trying to check my Gmail account as I do every day. By the time a colleague sitting nearby (who had encountered the same problem) called our IT department, they had already recieved several calls and were fixing the glitch.
In six years, this was only the second time I had been blocked from a Web site at work. The first time was in 2000, when I was working as an intern for this very magazine. While researching a story about Gore-Lieberman yarmulkes (they really existed—I promise), I was blocked from www.judaism.com because it was "religious content/not work-related." I had to go to some mysterious office three floors up from mine, explain why I needed access, and was cleared for takeoff into a world of religious tchotchkes.
The block seemed odd at the time, but in today's context it seems truly absurd. I know people at other companies who are still blocked from a number of Web sites, and from Web-based e-mail like Hotmail and Gmail. But as magazine and online editors, we trade in information and so need nearly unfettered access to cyberspace. And I don't think that's true just for media companies. If you want your workforce to be innovators, employees need to know what's going on in the world. They need to be able to test-drive and sample other companies' Web applications They need to tinker with MySpace, eBay and blogs of all types—not so they can plan a high school reunion or run an action-figure-trading company out of the office, but so they can get first-hand knowledge of successful business models and understand what's resonating with consumers. And while your Gen-Y employees will probably visit these sites on their own time, most older employees won't bother.
Obviously, lines must be drawn somewhere. Some content should never be accessible at work, and deadlines must be met. But just make sure you're not keeping your innovators in the Web 1.0 world.
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