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Chesterfield County Public Schools now has a policy that establishes guidelines for the use of social networking sites by school division employees.

The School Board voted 3-0 Tuesday night to approve the new policy one of 17 new or revised policies adopted at the meeting making Chesterfield the first of central Virginia's four largest school divisions to have a specific social networking policy.

Board Chairwoman Patricia M. Carpenter and Vice Chairman David S. Wyman were absent.

School Board Attorney Kimberly Smith said during an afternoon work session that the division has worked on the policy for months because "social networking is an issue of great concern across the country."

Richmond Public Schools is also devising a policy to address the use of social networking, while the school systems in Henrico and Hanover counties incorporate the topic into already-established policies.

Chesterfield's new policy is a guide for how employees should establish social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter for educational purposes as well as how employees should use their personal social networking sites.

Smith said there was great discussion as the policy was being crafted about balancing free speech and freedom of expression while protecting students at the same time.

According to the policy, if a site is started for educational purposes then it must contain a clear statement of purpose and outcomes as well as a code of conduct for all site participants.

Also, the employee is responsible for applying appropriate security settings, allowing only approved participants access and to "diligently monitor" the site for inappropriate content.

The policy also states that the school system "does not recommend that any employee establish an online social networking relationship with a currently enrolled (student) on his or her personal social networking site(s)."

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Chesterfield schools adopt social networking policy

26-06-2012 13:54 Microsoft has agreed to acquire enterprise social-networking company Yammer for $1.2 billion in a deal that will expand the software giant's cloud services portfolio, Shira Ovide reports on digits.

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Microsoft Scoops Up Yammer - Video

CHESTERFIELD, Va. --

The Chesterfield County School Board is reviewing a proposed policy that would establish guidelines for employees who communicate with students using social networking sites.

It also specifies that employees may be disciplined for the inappropriate use of social networking. This new policy is one of 18 on the agenda for review and possible adoption at tonight's board meeting.

If the five-member School Board adopts the policy, Chesterfield will be the first of the Richmond region's four largest school divisions to have a specific policy addressing employees' use of social networking sites.

Chesterfield schools spokesman Shawn M. Smith said employees' use of social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter has been governed by the division's ethics and acceptable-use policies, but the proposed policy is a more defined social networking policy.

"These guidelines do not change our employee expectations," Smith said. "They bolster our expectations with specific regard to social networking.

"Existing ethics policies continue to govern social networking for all of our employees."

The proposed policy is a guide for how employees should establish social networking sites for educational purposes as well as how employees should use their personal social networking sites.

If a site is started for educational purposes, it must contain a clear statement of purpose and outcomes as well as a code of conduct for all site participants. Also, the employee is responsible for applying appropriate security settings, allowing only approved participants access and to "diligently monitor" the site for inappropriate content.

The policy also states that the school system "does not recommend that any employee establish an online social networking relationship with a currently enrolled students on his or her personal social networking site(s)."

Excerpt from:
Chesterfield school system considers policy on use of social networks

What's the one thing all organizations have in common? They must identify new ways to grow revenue and expand their business to stay competitive.

Increasingly, organizations are using cloud computing and social networking to help them embrace new market opportunities.

Over the past several years cloud computing has matured to a point where it's considered a mainstream technology service. The benefits can seem endless. It helps to reduce IT costs, it's easy to set up, scales to your business' storage needs seamlessly, provides customers, partners and employees with remote access from anywhere at anytime, it's secure and security-rich. Expected to grow to more than $214 billion by 2020, cloud computing has become a catalyst for capturing new business value.

Similarly, social networking for business has exploded over the past several years. Forrester Research reports that the market opportunity for social enterprise apps is expected to grow at a rate of 61 percent through 2016, reaching $6.4 billion. Once viewed as a tool for students and teens to connect with one another, businesses are now adopting similar concepts to better connect their employees, partners and clients and to transform globally. These organizations are transforming into social business as every department, from HR to marketing to product development to customer service to sales, are using social networking the way they use any other tool and channel to do their job.

They're integrating social networking tools into traditional business processes to fundamentally impact how work gets done and to create business value. They're deepening customer relationships, generating new ideas faster, identifying expertise, enabling a more effective workforce and ultimately driving their bottom line.

Imagine what could happen if you were to marry cloud computing and social networking.

Many organizations, of all shapes, sizes and industry, are already doing so and creating significant business value.

For example, within the RICOH Company, Ltd., an international supplier of office and industrial equipment, the Business Development Center is collaborating in the cloud creating products faster with an expected improvement in cycle time for new product introduction of 20 percent. Chefs at Newly Weds Foods, a world leader in food ingredient technology, have reduced department travel and meeting costs by 10 percent. Strategic Decisions Group (SDG), an international strategy consulting firm, has also achieved more than 60 percent cost reduction in their Asia Pacific e-mail system costs, all thanks to using cloud services.

Colleagues in Care' Global Healthcare Network (CIC) is using social networking tools in the cloud to virtually connect medical workers and volunteers from around the globe. Using this technology, the volunteers and those on the front lines taking care of patients are armed with an online medical knowledge system that includes treatment options, clinical pathways, and best practices specific to the situation in Haiti. For example, doctors on the ground in Haiti now have immediate access to information. Previously, a healthcare worker typically had no access to a specialist to consult about a specific medical condition. They can now immediately determine how to best care for a patient directly in front of them, at the same time collaborating with colleagues to determine more population-based strategies of effective care.

Colleagues In Care is using IBM cloud-based social analytics and collaboration services to provide their global network of healthcare volunteers with immediate access to critical data and information for the current healthcare needs of the Haitian citizens.

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Bethann Cregg: Imagine the Marriage of Social Networking and Cloud

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Posted 26 June 2012 18:25pm by Patricio Robles with 0 comments

Social networking's impact on the consumer internet is well-established and one need look no further than Facebook's current valuation to see that, despite healthy skepticism, social networking will continue to play a large role on the web.

But what about enterprise social networking?

While not talked about nearly as much, social has become a key focus for big tech companies like IBM, which are seeking ways to capitalize on bringing employees together.

Yesterday, after more than a week of rumors, Microsoft made its biggest move to date in the enterprise social networking space by purchasing Yammer for $1.2bn in cash.

Yammer, which launched as a Twitter-like service for company employees, is a full-fledged social networking platform that is used by 5m corporate users. A basic service is offered free of charge; companies pay to add additional features, such as more sophisticated administrative tools.

In shelling out more than a billion dollars for Yammer, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer clearly believes that the company, which is just four years old, can help Microsoft stay relevant in the social age. "The acquisition of Yammer underscores our commitment to deliver technology that businesses need and people love. Yammer adds a best-in-class enterprise social networking service to Microsofts growing portfolio of complementary cloud services," he stated.

While Microsoft says it intends to keep operating Yammer as a standalone entity with current Yammer CEO David Sacks at the helm, the Redmond software giant not surprisingly hinted at integrations with other Microsoft products, including SharePoint, Office 365, Dynamics and Skype.

Those make sense given that many of Yammer's existing users are employees of firms likely to be using Microsoft products. Indeed, according to Microsoft, employees at 85% of Fortune 500 companies are on Yammer.

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Microsoft buys Yammer, bets $1.2bn on enterprise social networking