Bahambug: 50% of Companies Fire Employees for Internet and Email Abuse

According to a study published by InfoWorld and conducted by the American Management Association (AMA) and The ePolicy Institute, more than 50% of companies have fired employees for abusing email and the Internet. The stats are alarming but not surprising.

Internet Misuse
84% have been fired for accessing porn and other inappropriate sites

34% have been fired for excessive personal use of the Internet

Email Misuse
64% have been fired for violating company email policy

62% have been fired for sending emails with offensive language

25% have been fired for excessive personal use of email

22% have been fired for violating confidentiality rules in email

How are companies monitoring email and internet use?
66% monitor Internet connections

65% use software to block inappropriate Web sites

18% block URLs to prevent access to external blogs

Methods for Monitoring
45% track content, keystrokes, and time spent at the keyboard

43% store and review computer files

12% monitor activity on blogs (if they allow access)

10% monitor social-networking sites (if they allow access)

Companies keep track of their employees behavior due to Legal Fears
24% of companies have had their emails subpoenaed

15% of companies have been sued based on employees misuse of email

I know its frustrating to have your online activity monitored so closely, but we all have to admit that companies not only have the right but they also have good cause to do so. Beyond legal liabilities, companies face security risks for allowing unrestricted access to external messaging and content sites. In addition, many companies are subject to strict document retention regulations and can be heavily fined for not storing all electronic communications and content. So if you are going to access personal messages or surf the Web while at work, please do so smartly.

Email is the Ultimate Social Network: Watch out Facebook and Myspace.

MySpace and Facebook are generally accepted as the largest and most popular social networks on the Web; but I would like to propose that this is a misconception. The largest and most popular social network is….YOUR EMAIL ACCOUNT.

Most of us have been using email long before Friendster came and went and Facebook rose and shined. Over the years we have collected hundreds and thousands of contacts. We communicate with these people regularly through email. It is likely that we have not even met many of these people in person. It is likely that we were connected to some of these people through others that are already in our contact list.

The problem with email as we know it today, however, is that it does not do a good job of unhinging the underlying social graph within our contact list. Helping people connect to friends of friends and exposing personal profiles of these contacts has been exclusively the role played by social networks. But that is about to change.

Xobni (Inbox spelled sdrawkcab…I mean backwards) is a new startup that has created an add-on application to Outlook. Xobni not only helps you to better organize your email and contacts, but it also tells you everyone in your contact list that has sent an email to each other…it “expose the hidden social network” in your email. It therefore connects your entire contact universe, even if certain contacts are not in your MySpace or Facebook friends list.

Xobni is simply brilliant, and the Valley Behemoths Yahoo and Google agree. Both have announced plans to add features to their existing email and personalized home page services that resemble the key attributes of many social networks.

While Google is holding its card close to the vest, Yahoo has been more forthcoming. They claim to be testing a method that can automatically determine the strength of your relationship to someone by how often you exchange e-mail and instant messages with him or her (very Xobni-esque). For those who opt-in, Yahoo will share contacts and display personal profiles in a similar fashion to Facebook. According to Brad Garlinghouse, VP at Yahoo, “The exciting part is that a lot of this information already exists on our network, but it’s dormant.” Consequently, adding social network-like features is a natural evolutionary step for email service providers.

Given that Yahoo and Google/Gmail already have hundreds of millions of users, I think with time, they will prove that email is, in fact, the ultimate social network. Factor in the instant messaging services not currently offered by most social networks, Facebook and MySpace may find themselves playing catch-up with the Big Boyz.

For more information on this subject, check out Saul Hansell’s article in the NY Times, “Inbox 2.0: Yahoo and Google to Turn E-mail into a Social Network.”

From Corporate To Startup

I am often asked about the difference between working for a large corporation and working for myself. The mix of inquisitors is interesting: some are future entrepreneurs strapped down by the fear of not having a stable job, some are very happy with their corporate employment and simply can’t understand why I would give up an interesting job to go on my own, some have already ventured on their own and simply want to share experiences, some are family members who fear for my future…I don’t blame them, they are the first people I will go to if I need a loan. But my answer is always the same: There exist pros and cons for both, but in general I am extremely happy with my decision to walk away from Corporate America to realize my vision and attempt to launch a business of my own.

In short working for a Fortune 100 Corporation was a great learning experience. I enjoyed the stability of a regular income, well-defined tasks, and regular faces. What I did not enjoy was the stability of known-but-capped income, doing the same thing every day, and dealing with office politics. The greatest benefits include gaining real-world knowledge, developing real skill sets, and learning how a large business operates. But the main draw back was feeling under-challenged and perhaps under-appreciated. Quite simply, at some point my learning curve began to plateau.

To describe what it is like to work for myself, I can not simply state the inverse of the pros and cons for working for a corporation. That would be too obvious. For starters, I made some very serious sacrifices, not only monetary but personal sacrifices. I lost friends, I lost a girl friend, and at times, I lost confidence. The challenges and pressures were and continue to be intense. Going off on your own is a big deal; very few people do it and so everyone is interested in watching your progress…Don’t let them get to you. The fear of not knowing how you are going to pay your bills is intimidating, building a strong team of co-founders and employees is challenging, and selling your vision to investors or even your friends and family is daunting. But these pressures and fears are what I love most about the startup life.

I love that in a single day, I have to wear multiple hats as a marketer, engineer, financial analyst, human resource manager, accountant, lawyer, copy-writer, researcher and overall problem-solver. I love that every day is different, complete with new challenges, successes and even failures. I love the learning process, the introspective examination, and the personal growth. Even though everyday is two steps forward and one step backward, nothing is more satisfying than looking up from your desk and seeing your team working hard to realize your vision.

If you are like me and enjoy taking risks, tackling challenges and solving different problems every day, then perhaps going out on your own is a good idea. However, I implore you not take this decision lightly. Ideas come and go all the time; the idea is the easy part. Before you go off on your own you must ask yourself, “Am I ready?” “Do I have the personality of entrepreneur?” “Have I weighed the benefits and assessed the risks?” “Am I ready to sacrifice much of what I have spent my life to build?”

I never regret my decision to go off on my own, but only because when I did, I knew I was ready. In my next post, I will discuss the check list I went through before submitting my letter of resignation.

Our Story

This is our story.

It is an account of two best friends who have set out to solve real problems for real people. Specifically we have taken on the charge to make the ways we all communicate online easier to manage and more accessible. After extensive research, we came up with NutshellMail.com, a free web-based service that enables you to better access and manage all your email and social networking accounts through any inbox you already use.

This blog will not only chronicle the experiences and challenges we face in trying to launch an internet startup, but it also addresses the very issues our solution was designed to resolve, namely:

• How can we better manage all our messaging accounts?
• How can we access personal messages at work without violating company policy?
• How can we keep our children safe online?
• How can we be more productive with online communication?

This journal will provide useful advice, statistics, news, and our personal thoughts on both business and the Web. Hopefully with your feedback, it will facilitate discussions and educate readers (as well as ourselves) about the Web, online communication, social media and how these forces continue to change our lives. We are particularly interested in how the Web affects the way we connect, communicate and collaborate, both, in our personal lives and in the workplace.

We believe the Web is a big, continuous conversation. We hope you find our posts to be informative and entertaining. We pledge to you, our readers, to always be honest, to speak straight, and to listen to your feedback. We encourage you to post comments, introduce new subjects and invite your friends to join the conversation.

Sincerely,

Mark and David

The Nuts at NutshellMail.com