GIGAOM — Maybe Thomson Reuters was feeling nostalgic about the flurry of negative attention that both the New York Times and the Washington Post got last year when they came out with policies on the use of social media tools such as Twitter and Facebook. For whatever reason, the wire service recently issued new guidelines for its staff, and they suffer from many of the same problems that both the NYT and WaPo policies did. All of these flaws boil down to one thing: A desire to control something that fundamentally can’t be controlled, and a fear of what happens when that control is lost...

PR SQUARED — I dove into my "Big Thinking" folder recently and emerged with a slide from the "Social Media Trends for 2010" deck created by Jeremiah Owyang of the Altimeter Group, discussing organizational models for corporate adoption of Social Media. Who is in control of this Social Media stuff?  What are the best practices? These questions come up a lot, particularly amongst large brands...

ADVERTISING AGE — Last week, a client told me that they don't allow employees to access YouTube at work. "Do your employees carry cellphones?" I asked. The answer was "yes," of course. Well then, most of them already have access to YouTube - right in their pockets. The fact is, resistance to social network access at work is futile. The Economist, in a special report on social networking, notes that a survey of 1,400 chief information officers conducted last year by the recruitment firm, Robert Half Technology, found that only one-tenth of them gave employees full access to such networks during the day, and that many were blocking Facebook and Twitter altogether. Here are five reasons companies should allow social networking...

DIGITAL INFLUENCE MAPPING PROJECT — I had the chance to speak with Lucas Watson from P&G last week. He spearheads digital innovation on the marcom side and leads a small team of digital and social experts who work across the brands (Global Team Leader for Digital Business Strategy). Clearly P&G has an earnest commitment to applying social media and other digital marketing innovations to their way of marketing. I have been reading Design of Business from Roger Martin and believe their efforts in terms of applying 'design thinking' to their business has created a culture that makes social easier to embrace. I asked Lucas how he has seen the most entrenched traditional marketers become more "willing" to use social. What does he do to help them? He gave me the following three things...

THE BRANDBUILDER BLOG — From Linda Zimmerman, in response to Is Your Social Media Director Qualified? "One point you made in the video I’d like to highlight. You mentioned Frank at Comcast who has taken his knowledge of customer service and social media and meshed them together. This is key. EVERY professional needs to understand social media in their own context so they can *interpret* it into their profession and job. This by the way should be part of a social media director’s job – educating..."