Facebook for Business: management is using social media to get minor superpowers

I was pointed to this post by Wade Rockett, one of the attendees at next week’s Web Community Forum: Community Building in the Age of Facebook. I know it’s from October (in blogging terms, this is like bringing up a conversation topic from the mesozoic era), but it outlines a really interesting aspect of Facebook for business use:

I was burning the midnight oil recently, starting to write an important piece that was due in a couple of days. It didn’t take long for me to realize that the job ahead of me would be much harder than I’d thought. Frankly, at that moment it seemed impossible that I could deliver quality work in such a short time. (Panic is often an essential part of the writing process.)

Feeling the need to vent in some small way, I updated my Facebook status to read, “Wade is deeply, DEEPLY unsettled.” Then I got to work.

The next morning I had an e-mail waiting for me from Geoff Bilbrough, my overboss in London. The subject line of his message read, “Is deeply unsettled.” In it was a simple question: Is there anything I should know or can do?

What happened here seems pretty straightforward: Geoff must have noticed Wade’s Facebook status, and was paying enough attention to want to offer help if it was needed. I think that this kind of apparent omniscience definitely qualifies as a “minor superpower.” Ten points to Facebook.

While a lot of people are probably going to feel unsettled knowing their boss could reading their Facebook statuses, I think that on the whole it is something that will end up giving companies (especially large ones where one boss may be in London and an employee in another country entirely) far more comfort and culture.

One of the reasons that I love working here at Parnassus Group is that we’ve got a relatively tight-night group. By virtue of the fact that we’re all connected through blogs, twitter, facebook, and on occasion, yes, real life too, our boss usually has a good handle on how we’re doing, and has even been known to bring Popsicles to sick employees.

My point is not to brag (yes it is). My point is that as managers and employees start interacting on social platforms like Facebook, especially when they live far away from each other, two things are going to happen:

1. Management will “mellow out” about personal expression - as “employees” turn into “people” AND as management gets younger, setting your Friday night Facebook status to “drunk dialing college buddies if I could find my phone” will probably not be grounds for a lecture.
2. Employees will have the opportunity to develop much better relationships with their bosses, especially if the communication is two way (think about your boss Twittering “At a wine and cheese party. Too much wine, not enough cheese.”)

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