Anyone can surf the ocean, but how many can surf at work? Enjoy.

NOTE: This photography by EvaXebra.

Those are common headlines these days it seems. Your company and mine are blocking just about every man of social networking and social media site. I’ve hedged about committing to lambasting this sort of policy. I’m a social networking addict.

My friend Phil Gerbyshak over at Slacker Manager has a different take though. Here’s a quote from the article Block New Media at Work.

We block these because we have no way of monitoring all the stuff people might say while they are using their work computer. I work for a financial services company, and we are required to keep a copy of EVERY piece of electronic communication our associates might send to their clients. And it’s not possible to do that right now, at least not easily, if we allow access to these sites.

It seems there’s another side to this issue. So often folks like me only look at what’s being denied to us; we fail to see how our very use of these tools could be harmful.

I don’t work for a financial company yet our company is just as concerned about negative interactions and keeping track of emails and such. Any appreciably large company is at risk for what they send out either verbally, in email, or by some odd chance video.

The only issue I have with this approach is that folks are free to use Twitter when they aren’t at work. They could just as easily bad mouth the company or its clients at those times. As a matter of fact, it’s likely they’ll be more inclined. Witness the recent spat of folks losing their jobs by stuff they posted when not at work.

So what’s your take? Block? Not block? Is this a political or legal issue? Moral issue? Challenge yourself on this issue.

Oh yeah, if you’re reading this at work, thank your HR department.

Toastmasters has been around since 1924. The nonprofit organization now has nearly 235,000 members in 11,700 clubs in 92 countries. In my area there are several active clubs, meeting just about every day of the week.

It turns out that the company I work for, Covidien, has its own club, The Covidien Communicators. The Communicators have been around just about a year, but the group has already grown to over 20 regular members. The roster now includes yours truly.

I attended my first meeting this week. The welcome was quite enthusiastic. Mike, one of the leaders, contacted me the day before to make sure I knew the date, time and location, as well as extended a personal invitation. He also briefed me on what to expect at the meeting and in general.

The meeting was run professionally with what I learned later was a standard organization. Every part is planned ahead, including who takes each role, who will speak, and what the table topics are.

The table topics was the most enjoyable to me. So what is table topics? Here’s an excerpt from the Toastmasters site:

Table Topics usually begins after the prepared speech presentations. The Toastmaster of the meeting will introduce the Topicsmaster who will walk to the lectern and assume control of the meeting. The Topicsmaster will give a brief description of the purpose of Table Topics and mention if the topics will carry a theme.

The Topicsmaster will state the question or topic briefly and then call on a respondent. Each speaker receives a different topic or question and participants are called on at random.

When you’re asked to respond to a topic, stand next to your chair and give your response. Your response should last one to two minutes.

Sounds like fun right? Well, fun at my first meeting anyway. I didn’t get called upon. I almost wish I did though.  The questions were all themed around Mardi Gras and traditions.

After the meeting, the President of the club greeted me and indicated she’d been assigned as my mentor. Made me feel noticed and appreciated for joining.

I’d say the club and I are off to a good start.  My sponsor had lunch with me just two days after the meeting and I’m scheduled to do my first speech.  It’s a basic introduction speech.  The basic idea is to get used to public speaking.  If you know me, that might not seem like a problem, but I do not consider myself a talented speaker.

My goals in joining are both to learn and improve my speaking techniques, and to learn and hone leadership skills.  Increasingly in my position at work, I find myself speaking in front of both peers, managers, and customers. At those times, I’m alternately coworker, project leader, and educator. It’s an interesting mix, and often taxes my current skills.

Anticipating success is key to any endeavor.  That in mind, I’m kicking this off looking forward to be a speaker to reckon with one day.

Cheers,

Todd

@tojosan on Twitter

     Today I’m in the middle of what seems to be a never ending bit of frustration at work.  Today the struggle though is as much inside as it is outside.  It’s taken some talking to though to make me realize that in what I’ve seen as an ongoing struggle that there’s an opportunity to live what I preach about.  There’s a chance to be playing the game for real and for keeps.

     The first person to speak with me really started our conversation on Saturday with a surprise call.  She spoke to me about visible authenticity. It’s a calling to walk the talk out loud and in public.  But the conversation didn’t stop there, today she came with full force about playing for keeps; that would be Liz Strauss for you.

     The second person to speak with me was someone that came as a total surprise, an upper level manager at work.  This person took time to not only listen to me grumble but responded with transparency and visibility.  They provided me with proof of their actions and intentions and explain why those didn’t happen.  This lead to how come my current situation seems so bad.  

     The manager chose to go beyond that though and talk with me about what was driving the frustration I’m having and help me see something about myself.  It became clear they saw my talk was that I want to be able to take better charge of my life and my situation, but they pointed out that I might be too busy focusing on what’s not right that I’m missing the opportunity to take the reigns more and walk like a leader instead of just talking about it.

     Talk about a message being received loud and clear. BAM! Right between the eyes with the hits. Both Liz and the manager spoke words that aren’t just random bits in the life stream. 

     Because of that, the truth comes out that I’ve been saying that leaders lead, they don’t wait for things to line up for them, but that’s just the opposite of what I’ve been doing.  I’ve been waiting for the perfect opportunities at my day job and in my life.  There won’t be better times if I’m not willing to work towards those times with my own two hands and my own spirit.

     Are you just talking? Are you really in the game for real and for keeps?  Are you waiting for something magic to happen? Perhaps your own personal fixit fairy?  BAM! There you go. The wait’s over. Now is the time to authentic and move forward from there.

I start at the new position tomorrow.  May not be doing much, but my days on the Logistics team are over for now.  Welcome to the world of Manufacturing IS.

This position will be totally new software packages to learn, and new software development tools as well.  In addition, lots of new internal customers to get acquainted with and a team I’m only somewhat familiar with.

My current director asked me if I was ready or anxious. I told him the new team better be ready to keep up! Why do I feel that way? Because they recruited me off of my current team.  The new boss sang my praises on our first meeting.  Of course, there’s always that I’m damn good at what I do.

Cheers!

(cartoon created with Toonlet, check them out.)