Is Google Wave the Solution to Social Network Over-Sharing?
Edward Albro extols the potential of Google Wave as a targeted social networking tool on PC World. “Don’t get me wrong: I can see how Wave would be useful in professional circumstances, collaborating on a group project, for instance. But to my mind, it looks most like the next evolution of social networks. And that’s an area that desperately needs to evolve.”

Telecommuting offers flexibility, but working remotely takes balance
Leah Bartos of New Orleans City Business tackles the pros and cons of working outside the office. “The issue of cost really depends on the individual company and what they’re asking the person to do,” [one expert] said. “In some cases there may be a cost-effectiveness to not paying for an employee’s office space.” But in other cases it might be questionable. “You don’t have to provide the office space, but then you lose some of the personal interacting. … It’s really not something you can put a blanket on and say it’s a cost-effective improvement for everyone.”

Streamline Your Online Experience
Adam Pash shares some tips to bring order and sanity back to your life online. “The Internet is an amazing venue for sharing your life with family and friends, but if you don’t pay attention to what you’re sharing, it can turn into a privacy nightmare. You can do a lot to protect yourself. If you’re on Facebook, for example, get to know the privacy settings. You can determine what you broadcast to the world; and when used wisely, the settings provide serious control over what details the site exposes. One great setting to tweak is the Search setting, which lets you restrict how much information people can see about you before you add them as friends.”

Borderless offices

John DiLullo, President of Avaya Asia Pacific, writes about the readiness of available technology to support teleworking and its rising acceptance on AsiaOne. “Flexible working helps tackle the twin issues of productivity as well as work-life balance. A survey commissioned by Avaya last year showed a dramatic increase in positive attitudes towards telecommuting in the Asia Pacific. About 80 per cent of managers agreed that telecommuting improves productivity compared to 60 per cent in 2005. Also, 70 per cent of the managers favoured flexible working as a means of improving work-life balance.”

Influence – not as simple as Gladwell would have you believe!

Matthew Hurst wrote an in-depth article on Data Mining regarding social media’s influence. “Diffusion of information may ‘long circuit’ the small worlds of social networks. In Kleinberg’s presentation regarding the study of the largest internet chain mail (a petition) he described the role of the threshold model of diffusion in which we require multiple receipts of a stimulus (e.g. a chain mail letter) to pass it on, we are more sensitive to our immediate community – our strong links – than to small-world building weak links.”

Mid-lifers navigate world of social networking online
Kathleen Megan of Inside Bay Area talks about the problems faced by older generations in dealing with an unfamiliar social networking culture. “With the thunderous arrival of mid-lifers on Facebook and other social networks, so, too, have come the questions from grown-ups trying to fit online networking into already crowded lives. What’s the etiquette? Which networks are worth joining? Should I be doing this for social reasons or career reasons? Are there ground rules on friending or defriending on Facebook?”

Social networking your way to a job

Public Radio discussed the benefits of social networking for those in the thick of job-hunting. “I’m still having lots of meetings with people, but now I think the meetings are better. Because sometimes you just really connect with people through a shared interest that wouldn’t be obvious from just cold-calling them on the phone, or just meeting them in person with no context.”

Productivity and Costs, First Quarter 2009, Preliminary
A Bureau of Labor statistics release on US productivity, with a segment devoted to the business sector. “Productivity in the business sector rose 1.1 percent in the first quarter of 2009, as output decreased 7.8 percent and hours of all persons at work in the sector–employees, proprietors, and unpaid family workers–fell 8.8 percent (seasonally adjusted annual rates). The decrease in hours was the largest since a decline of 12.1 percent in the first quarter of 1975. When measured from the first quarter of 2008 to the first quarter of 2009, output per hour increased 1.9 percent (tables A and 1). This growth rate is lower than the 2.5 percent average annual rate from 2000 to 2007.”