Another Infographic bites the dust

Mindflash produced another Infographic, subtitled "Are companies allowing employees to use social media in the workplace?"
That title couldn't be more misleading. Yet another time it's proven that content and presentation hardly ever go along



Here are the figures, that come from -don't get frightened- www.proskaurer.com, sharocity.com, techrepublic.com and socialmediatoday.com. Wow, that's the lousiest source reference ever seen; why not just say "we just grabbed some stuff off the web"?

70.7% of companies actively blocks social networking sites. Does that mean all, a few, some or most? Giving that the benefit of the doubt, that means all: the answer is 70.7% Yes and 29.3% No so no room for margin there.
What does surprise then, is the fact that 27.4% of social media use is monitored: that means of all companies allowing social media use, 93.5% is monitoring it - why monitor it if it's blocked?
That again means that all social media use is either blocked, or monitored, with only 2% of all possible social media use being unmonitored nor blocked

Well, that makes the remainder of this infographic pretty irrelevant, doesn't it? What business use is social media when you either block or monitor it? Do you block or monitor email? Phone calls? Text messages?

Apparently, that doesn't matter. Mindflash just grabs a few other figures and mindlessly puts them in there: 55.1% has social media policies in place, 44.9% doesn't. How very interesting: the majority of companies has social media policies in place while less than a third allows for it. Awkward? Mindflash doesn't think so, and even subdivides that into 16.5% of policies covering use at work, and 44% both at and outside of work - and 39.4% answering "not applicable".
Now who did they interview for this last question? Everyone? Then why isn't that 39.4% exactly equal to the 44.9% that doesn't have any policies? Didn't they ask everyone, but just the policy makers? How come then over a third answers "not applicable"?

Two more incredible stats: misuse and advantage.
56.6% says misuse has never been an issue, and 68.7% has never taken disciplinary action for misuse. Then why does over 70% block social networks? Old-fashioned enterprise 1.0 FUD? Probably - but here's the best part:
31% sees advantage for business use in social media use, 55% sees advantage for business use BUT disadvantage for non-business use by allowing employees access to social networking sites while at work

Stunning. Let me recap that: 86% of all companies sees advantage for business use in allowing employees access to social media sites, yet 70% blocks it, and of those who don't, 94% monitors it. Oh and twice as many companies who don't block it, have social media policies in place

Just Another InfoCrapPic - I hadn't expected anything else