BORYS DBE blog - CYBER SLACKING

YouTube or utube? Confused?

2006-11-04T09:31:00.000+01:00

Most companies would welcome 70 million people visiting their website every month, but for one small US company selling secondhand tube and pipe machinery, the effects of being mistaken for the hugely popular YouTube have been so disastrous that it is suing the video-sharing website. (...)

Remaining part of article: http://news.independent.co.uk/world/science_technology/article1951710.ece

Assessment of our blogs

2006-10-29T22:24:00.000+01:00

I would like to congratulate all my MBA colleagues, especially Forty4, e-grasshopper, blogproof, Boguslaw and maniana. They obtain excellent marks in our blogs assignment.
Personally, I would like to thank Forty4 for his help and advices.
Once again, congratulations all of us because we put a lot of effort into our blogs’ creation.

What I found...

2006-10-29T12:28:00.000+01:00

When I was looking for some interesting news in Internet, I found quite curious advertising...
How to connect Your shoes with IPod? The answer is:
http://www.nike.com/nikeplus/index.jhtml?locale=es_es&promoID=alpais.com_336x850#overview

XI Edition of Cracow MBA course web page

2006-10-17T22:14:00.000+02:00

It works!
New web page of the XI Edition of the MBA course (SPiZ, AE Krakow, Stockholm University). If You have any suggestions about it or about MBA courses in general, just make it: http://mbacracow.atwiki.com/

Soon...

2006-10-05T13:23:00.000+02:00

Soon, I will post more information about CYBE SLACKING and MBA course.
So, it's not the end of my blog...

The ethical aspect of the CYBER SLACKING

2006-09-22T09:58:00.000+02:00

Is the cyber slacking on the job theft or increased productivity?
In the red corner, cyber slacking could be defined as “indirect theft”: ”A fair extension of the notion of stealing to embrace more than property, but in fact anything whatsoever that is of value to an individual or organization, is in order. The time employees misuse, but for which they are compensated, as well as the monetary value of Internet access privileges via company equipment are properly considered objects of theft. Something of economic value has obviously been stolen.”
But in the blue corner: “If, however, the apparent Internet addict somehow still renders value to the company, perhaps even as a result of the cyberactivity, which might foster subconscious problem solving or provide a necessary break from drudgery or intense creative endeavor; there is obviously then no swindle” and “the widespread tendency to use the web for healthy relaxation or occasional business, yes, even for moderate cyber slacking. Productivity might actually increase with such a corporate culture.”
So, what is it? The problem with putting the matter in this way is that the answer could be: both. This is because the two of them are not contrary to each other.
In order to make sense of this phenomenon, we must consider this problem separately. Whether it is theft or not depends, entirely, upon the contact in force, whether explicit or implicit. If the employer posts signs on the walls to the effect that time wasting will be considered theft, and offenders will be fired, and stipulates this in all its employment contracts, there is an easy answer to the question. Then, yes, cyber slacking is explicit theft in such contexts. If not, then it is not explicit theft. What about implicit theft? This, too, depends upon the contract in force. In accordance to Polish Labour Law there's no direct regulations but IAUP (Internet Acceptable Use Policy) was implemented in many Polish enterprises. On the other hand surfing in the Internet could be reason of the productivity or rather creativity growth. But like usual, there’s no immediate and direct answer.

Block Walter "Cyberslacking, Business Ethics and Managerial Economics" Journal of Business Ethics
Friedman William "Is the Answer to Internet Addiction Internet Interdiction?"

Less than three weeks left... - Prof. Gatarski message

2006-09-08T16:21:00.000+02:00

Today I took a look at the situation. According to my notes there are 28 registered blogs, of which many are just one post. On the other hand, some of you are doing just fine.I do not know how many students are in the class, but more than the registered blogs I guess. Most likely those who have not yet created a blog will not make an acceptable assignment.Neither will those of you who have made only one or two posts...Please feel to publish what you think about the assignment. Either as posts in your blogs, or by commenting others thoughts on this subject (but I might miss reading such comment).And I hope you bear with me as I grade your efforts. Quite a complicated task...but you will help. More on that later on.

http://aedbe.blogspot.com/

: ]

2006-09-06T12:07:00.000+02:00

You never know who's watching You... and Your computer screen

http://www.bbc.co.uk/

My Internet activities

2006-08-27T15:42:00.000+02:00

During last 3 weeks I’ve been measuring my „cyber slacking” Internet activities (see a pie chart). But firstly, I would like to present some important information about my duties and working time, which in my opinion is quite important in this case.
The most important duties:
- preparing financial and technical documents,
- preparing internal and external documents,
- negotiations with providers and subcontractors,
- coordination of the various departments’ work.
Approximately 60% of my working time I spend in front of my computer screen. The remaining 40% is divided into meetings, negotiations and work coordination.
Normally I spend almost 11 hours in my office including visits in the building-site and short lunch break (usually it is 30 minutes break).
Every day after the work I try to make plans for next day. Of course, sticking to those detailed work’s schedules is quite difficult, but I do my best ; ]

During last 3 weeks I’ve tried to assiduously write all my Internet activities (not connected with my work and duties). I don’t have to much time to lose, but according to my “researches” I spend 29 minutes every day! The most time-consuming activity is news reading (41,4%), checking a privet e-mails box is on the second place (24,1%). For further information see a pie chart below.
Like in other researches, it’s necessary to ask the question about the results’ credibility. I’m aware of the low objective of it, taking into the consideration that I was the guinea-pig and I didn't use a special software to monitor the Internet traffic.

Internet Acceptable Use Policy (IAUP)

2006-08-10T19:49:00.000+02:00

IAUP is a written agreement, between employer and employee, whose intent is to identify permissible workplace uses of the Internet and prohibited workplace uses of the Internet.

Employers usually have sensitive data on their computer systems - company plans, customer data, or product designs may need a clause in their Internet Policy concerning trade secrets. It should be made clear to employees that under no circumstances should proprietary company information be passed though the Internet, or that such material be encrypted if transmitted over the Internet.

Employers should institute guidelines that prohibit illegal use of the Internet in general. A directive that employees take care not to violate copyright laws should be included. Gambling via the Internet may also be a concern, and an it should contain a prohibition against such activity not only because of its potentially adverse affect on productivity but also because the activity may be illegal.

General information about IAUP
http://www.nlrg.com/lawlet/iup.htm

Some examples of IAUP
http://www.doe.state.in.us/olr/aup/welcome.html
http://www.businesslink.gov.uk/bdotg/action/detail?type=RESOURCES&itemId=1076142205

CYBER SLACKING. How to prevent and monitor?

2006-08-01T19:06:00.000+02:00

In accordance to latest comment published by blogproof, I’ve decided to find more information about the monitoring and filtering software. The results of my searches are below...

Gallup estimates that the average employee with Internet access spends more than one hour per day surfing web sites that have nothing to do with their job (such as auction sites, sports sites, stock sites, news sites, gambling or sex sites). That is more than five hours per week!!!

In accordance to latest technology is it possible to monitor or to record everything your employees do online, including instant messages, chats, emails sent and received, web sites visited, applications launched, network connections established and bandwidth consumed, files downloaded, files copied to removable media, and keystrokes typed.

The filtering software
Filtering software blocks some of the sites your employees would want to visit. Theoretically, that cuts back on some non-work related surfing, but savvy surfers can always find a similar site that serves as a good substitute for the one the filtering software is blocking.
The bigger problem with filtering software is that it blocks many of the sites you want your employees to be able to access for business purposes. Although some filtering products do allow for the “unblocking” of blacklisted sites, do you really want the headaches associated with deciding what should be blocked and what should be available?
Finally, what is appropriate for one employee in one department may be off limits for an employee in another department. Although one size does not fit all, filtering products make the assumption that one solution works across the board.

The monitoring software
The monitoring software does not block, but of course it could. Instead, it watches, observes and records what your employees do and then provides you with the most detailed accounting of everything they do online of any Internet Monitoring product in the world. It records all web sites your employees visit, all chat conversations, all incoming and outgoing emails all applications run and all keystrokes typed. In addition, the monitoring software is constantly filming each computer, taking snapshots of whatever is on the computer screen, as often as once every second – with no degradation in speed or employee performance.

Interesting, isn’t it?

What about the ethical aspect of the CYBER SLACKING?

What’s your opinion about it?

Interesting links:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/2134443.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/2117581.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/734844.stm

A Cyber Slacking risk

2006-07-16T17:24:00.000+02:00

Risk created by misuse of the internet:
· pirating copyrighted materials, raising legal liabilities for their employer,
· installing unlicensed software,
· creating a hostile workplace by downloading offensive material, which besides being bad in itself, gives grounds for claims to employment tribunals,
· revealing company information or libelling other firms or individuals in emails,
· increased risk of viruses and hacker attacks,
· accidental (or deliberate) release of confidential information,
· wasted staff productivity through personal use of the internet on company time,
· non-business traffic, especially data-heavy video and audio, clogs network bandwidth and slows down legitimate traffic.

Accordnig to data presented on Security Bulletin third of companies have been forced to discipline staff for digital delinquency including downloading pornography, sending rude emails and job hunting on company time. An American software developer found that 77% of company networks unwittingly hosted some form of Napster-like peer to peer file sharing software, which employees were using to distribute pirate music and software and that 70% of internet porn traffic occurs between 9am and 5pm. It has become the biggest disciplinary problem for employers.

Your employees are hard at work at their computers and browsing the web. But are they doing it for the company?

2006-07-15T23:16:00.000+02:00

Not completely, according to a Web@Work survey (commissioned by Websense - California based provider of employee Internet management solutions).
Across eight regions of the world, 83 per cent of respondents said they surfed non-work-related websites during office hours. Chinese office workers are the worst, concludes the survey, because they spend more than one hour a day on personal usage. Specifically, Chinese employees spend 5.6 hours per week on personal Internet usage in the workplace, 1.4 hours more than the average of 4.2 hours for companies in the Asia Pacific region.
While only 26 per cent of workers in India handle personal e-mail during office hours, the figure is a whopping 60 per cent in China.
In other areas, 16 per cent more Chinese devote work time to downloading music than Latin Americans, 8 per cent more to online chatting and 12 per cent more to online games, than the next worst offenders.
Employers in China are taking notice. IT managers across the nation estimate the average weekly time for personal surfing is even higher than the survey's finding - at 6.2 hours!

[People's Daily Online]

CYBER SLACKING - the subject of my blog

2006-07-09T11:53:00.000+02:00

Today, after the many weeks of the hesitations, I’ve decided to choose the subject of my blog.
Ladies and gentlemen! The winner is...
CYBER SLACKING

What it means? I suppose, that every of us met this problem in his enterprise.
So, what is a definition of cyber slacking is? Is the practice of emloyees using the Internet or other employer-provided resources for leisure during work hours, contributing to inefficiency. [www.wikipedia.com].
In accordance to results of the researches published on the Internet, app. 90% of the employees in USA are using Internet during theirs working hours for private use. When I've started looking for interesting information about the CYBER SLACKING, I found alarming data. Newsweek reports in end of nineties: “personal surfing and e-mailing can seriously strain a company's computer network” this is a cost of $1 billion a year in wasted computer resources, plus "billions of dollars in lost productivity" [Newsweek, November 1999]
The problem is growing...

Trying to concentrate on my work without checking my BLOG every 5 minutes I'm waiting for Your comments about the CYBER SLACKING after the 6 p.m. please ; ]

Expensive blogs

2006-06-18T21:39:00.000+02:00

The advertising expenses in Internet are growing rapidly. Except for the traditional advertising form (like e.g. sponsored links, banners) the new solutions are met. Only in USA, the expenses for new advertising form in the last year have grown by app. 200%. More then 80% of 20 million dollar were invested in blogs. Analytics predict that American advertising market on blogs, podcasts and RSS will double each year. It means that in 2010 advertiser will pay more than 750 million dollar for that.
From "Polityka" No 20/2006

Del toro, nuestro nuevo amigo en el blogging

2006-06-07T16:25:00.000+02:00

!Hola!
Del toro, que suerte que estas con nostros. Espero que pongas mi enlace en tu pagina ; ]

2006-06-06T17:42:00.000+02:00

Prof. Gatarski message:

"We are trying out a brand new, ultra modern, assignment idea. A lot of work for all of us, but we are making history and the students will learn a lot! (...)"

2006-06-05T22:01:00.000+02:00

My first step

Yes!

I did it.

Today evening I've created my first blog! Ufffff...

Now I've to back to my Operation Research task. See you tomorrow.