The U.S. Supreme Court is planning to hear a case that will determine if an employer may view those text messages you post from your mobile. The ruling could have huge implications for workers and the use of applications in the enterprise. Sponsor The case stems from a decision from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco that ruled the city of Ontario, California did not have the right to view text messages between city police officers. Privacy in the workplace is always a touchy subject. In this case, Judge Kim Wardlaw said the police officers have a reasonable expectation of privacy. Corporations pretty much have access to your email. Companies argue that liability falls on its shoulders when it comes to employee communications. It is the business that is required to archive emails and fall in line with regulatory requirements. But employees don't want to feel like they are working in some kind of corporate police state. What are the implications of a Supreme Court ruling such as this? We are seeing a rush of enterprise applications that will fuel communications in the enterprise to a fiery roar. Application that use real-time streams may actually help matters as the dialogue is pretty much transparent. But when it comes to hosted applications, the issues are at best murky, and at worst a minefield of problems. According to news reports a decision is expected by next June. Discuss

View post:
Texting at Work? Supreme Court to Decide About Your Privacy

The debate rages on over whether social networks (and Twitter, and YouTube, and, and, and) have any legitimacy in the workplace, fueled in no small part by people who sell tools to block them . But employers who turn their noses up at Facebook et al. may well discover that their coveted Millennials (a.k.a. Generation Y, a.k.a. those damn kids who won't get off your lawn) are happy to return the favour when recruiting time rolls around. Blocking access to Facebook looks a lot like those IT departments that wouldn't install web browsers on your computer a decade ago... or external email access a few years earlier. Sponsor And like those tools before them, the social web today is increasingly being used by companies and organizations for productive, collaborative work. So it's not just a question of denying your HR department a hiring pool of cool kids. Blocking social media from your company can mean cutting yourself off from an important potential source of productivity, innovation and increased efficiency. Of course, that's an argument I like to make to people who haven't just received a dozen Farmville notifications. More Noise to Signal. Discuss

Read the original here:
Cartoon: Friends With Benefits