Text, Tweet or--Email? Try Prairie Dogging.

It’s become a recurring storyline for newspapers, magazines, tv and the web. Joe, for example, was a leading candidate for a good position in a hot firm. Before the final recommendation the recruiting firm checked out his use of social media. There was no badmouthing of his current firm. But a 20-something, Joe had sent one “harmless” picture of sexting while in college and the picture was still there. No recommendation for Joe! Even though he was now embarrassed by his college prank, there’s practically no disposal. And the recruiter found it.

Surveillance monitoring is nothing new. At the least, it dates back to the beginning of Henry Ford’s assembly line in the early 20^th century. (I suspect the Egyptians were monitoring their slaves’ production of granite block for the pyramids.) Ford’s systems were set up ...

 in such a way that managers knew exactly how many widgets an employee could produce in an hour. And if that didn’t happen, the employee could lose his job. I worked in a factory in the 1950s for a year and absolutely everything I did was counted. My job was on the line. Today’s surveillance looks different, but the consequences are no different.

In a NYTimes article, Michael Dell reveals the breadth of his new business and discloses some of his new business strategies: The new Dell. . . is developing software that measures facial expressions, voice tone, even how we individually swipe key cards. Is that surveillance? Of course.

You can be damn certain that many companies are monitoring keystrokes, the length of phone calls, time away from a desk, time between phone calls and sending and receiving data through digital media.

The AMA recently updated an article on monitoring statistics, though it didn’t include texting or tweeting. Still, the statistics shouldn’t be ignored:

• 28% of organizations have fired employees for misuse of the internet.
• 28% have fired employees for misuse of e-mail (we still use e-mail).
• 76% monitor employees’ web connections.
• 43% store and review workers’ data files (spreadsheets, word processing documents, etc.)
• 66% review employees’ e-mail messages.

Why do companies monitor employees in these ways?  As a rule companies put three reasons forward.  They own the technology, so it's their right. The technology also allows for quality control.  And third, technology enables companies to increase productivity by decreasing instances of "theft of resources."

So how’s the smart worker—or college student—know when to text or tweet and when not to?

Prairie-dogging
In a previous post I referred to a conversation with a media specialist who suggested that the “prairie dog test” could keep most people out of trouble. For those of you who haven’t travelled to the Great Plains, prairie dogs are those native ground squirrels that stand up on their hind legs, surveying the environment for safety before heading far from their home digs.

So here’s the rule: Don’t publish—or picture—anything you wouldn’t be comfortable standing up in your cubicle and shouting or showing to everyone.

The best approach is face-to-face and sometimes, phone. Yeah, I know. Gen-Yers are highly resistant to use the phone and face-to-face takes time. Still, this is all about street smarts. Anything and everything visual and in print can come back to haunt you.