power to the people!!!

A group of students who have created a protest group on Facebook to petition HSBC to reverse its decision to stop free overdrafts…have succeeded!

I believe the Facebook group of over 5,000 students is a great demonstration of the growing maturity of Social Networking sites like Facebook and how they are being viewed as more than just time wasting recreational platforms.

I was riled yesterday when I listened to an interview on Radio 5 Live with a chap called Peter Mooney from the Employment Law Advisory Services. The debate was about whether Facebook should be banned from all work places due to employees wasting work time on the (admittedly) addictive site.

There’s no doubting that Facebook as a site is used for recreational purposes in the main, but it’s also a vital platform for networking within working industries. There are tons of work related groups on Facebook and these groups facilitate important sharing of work related knowledge, ideas and the odd networking beer/coffee meet too.

I hope the HSBC protest group news story will now help the likes of Peter Mooney (""Why should employers pay for the privilege of allowing their employees to access Facebook, MySpace or Bebo from work computers whether in an employee's lunch-time or not?") realise the importance of sites like Facebook in connecting people for serious work-related or cause-related matters!

…anyway back to throwing sheep at Martin!!