Is social media safe for work?

Quick plug for something I’ve been contributing to elsewhere: we’ve been working with the TUC and Get Safe Online to launch a new toolkit to help improve workers’ Internet security awareness and skills. From the press release:

While employers are improving their Internet security systems, their good work could be undermined if they fail to ensure that their staff’s skills are up-to-date. This could have a huge impact on employers, who may stand to lose valuable commercial or customer data, or lose money through damage or downtime due to attacks.

The toolkit brings together video interviews from industry experts, quizzes and reading lists, and offers a personalised prescription on Internet security issues that is tailored to an individual’s Internet usage.

There’s information on:

• Malicious software – viruses and other programs that attack your computer and company’s IT system;
• Identity theft – criminals breaking your passwords in order to steal valuable personal and company data;
• Your rights at work -the dos and don’ts of personal computer use at work and whether you are being monitored;
• Your privacy online – tips for social networking users, whose personal and work life could be visible to more people they think.

There’s lots good, practical stuff in there for people planning in-house training on the implications of social media in the workplace, including a video interview with the Guardian’s Jemima Kiss on social networking and privacy.

The bottom line is that if we want to win over managers and IT departments to wider use of social media in corporate environments, users need to be smart about how they use the tools. Packages like this are a lot more engaging than those 10 page staff policies on internet usage they tell you to read on the intranet. Of course we need those policies, but if we’re serious about changing behaviour, we need these kinds of toolkits too.

Props to John Wood at TUC for making it happen.