Oh, yeahhh… baby, your employees do like porn… and other non-work related websites. And they surf these sites while at work.

According to the Web@Work study conducted by Harris Interactive® for Websense, 12% of surveyed employees have either by accident or on purpose, visited a pornography website while at work (versus 17 percent last year). The overwhelming majority of those who have visited pornography sites at work (95%) said their visit to the site was accidental.

Ha ha! I laughed till I cried… and then I laughed some more! What people ‘say’ they do and what they actually ‘do’ is often very different… I guarantee you all the money in my pocket that this is one of those cases – especially when taking a survey that asks them about their nudie picture habits while at work – and answering the survey while sitting at their desk. There are far more people than 12-17% of employees with Internet access that are surfing porn – or have viewed it online at some time during the workday. I’ll bet you it’s closer to 50% of workers.

Filthy, dirty...

One SVP of Communications at a company told me in (I assured him anonymity) that according to their logs, the top three most visited websites by their employees were all porn sites. Of course, that is one extreme. The reality at most companies is likely somewhere between this example and the findings in the report.

The survey also reveals that…

• 46% of employees surveyed reported that they believe they are at risk of losing their job if they visited adult content using their work-owned internet connection
• 30% said they would be fired if they infected the company with malicious spyware or a virus
• 12% of employees admitted that they have had a co-worker, friend, or acquaintance send a link to their work email address that they considered offensive
• 11% of employees admitted that a co-worker, friend, or acquaintance has sent a link to their work email address to a website that they thought might contain spyware or lead to some sort of security risk
• 92% of employees surveyed said that they believe that their company has the right to install web filtering technology to manage which types of websites they visit

“Protecting employees from hostile work environments that can result from the availability of x-rated content in the workplace will always be an important concern for organizations who seek to limit their potential legal liability for sexual harassment,” said Michael Newman, vice president and general counsel, Websense, Inc. “However, web-based security threats such as malicious spyware and viruses are much more difficult for both employees and companies to detect, and the potential for damage can be disastrous—one accidental click of the mouse can take an entire network down for days at a time.”

Interesting enough, 50% of the surveyed workers said of them said that they would rather give up their morning coffee than give up their ability to use the internet at work for personal use. Hmmm, substituting one addiction for another… tough choice.

What else are people doing at work?

TIME SPENT—93% of respondents said they spend at least some time accessing the internet at work.

PERSONAL SURFING—61% of employees who utilize a work-owned internet connection admitted that they spend at least some time surfing non work-related websites during the work day. Of those employees who access non-work-related websites, the average time spent accessing the internet at work is 12.81 hours per week, and the average time accessing non-work-related websites at work is 3.06 hours per week. This means that, on average, 24% of their time spent accessing the internet is non work-related.

TIME SPENT ON NON WORK-RELATED WEBSITES—IT decision-makers estimate that their employees spend an average of 5.7 hours per week surfing non work-related websites, while employees, on average, only admit to spending 3.06 hours per week accessing non work-related sites.

WEBSITES ACCESSED—among employees who access non-work-related sites at work, the top three non-work-related sites accessed are map sites such as Mapquest (83%), news sites (80%), and weather sites (76%).

BLOGGING—5% of employees said that they have a personal blog. Of those who have a personal blog, nearly half (46%) indicated that they do record work-related events or interactions with their co-workers in their personal blogs at least some amount of the time. 42% of employees said that their company has regulations that prohibit employee-blogging. Eleven percent of employees reported that they have visited blog websites during work hours. Of those employees, 31% said they visit them occasionally or very frequently.

Other notables:

• 24% employees watch or listen to streaming media at least once per week from work (up from 18% last year
• 17% use instant messaging (IM) at least once per week from work
• Of those employees who said they use IM, 29% said they use it primarily for non-work-related purposes
• 18% of employees have downloaded and stored non-work-related mp3s, personal photos, video clips, or movie clips on their work computer or network.

Methodology

Data for the survey was collected by Harris Interactive on behalf of Websense. Harris Interactive is solely responsible for the telephone data collected and Websense is responsible for the data analysis and reporting. Both parties collaborated on the survey questionnaire. The survey was conducted by telephone within the U.S. during March and April 2006 among a nationwide cross sample of 500 employees aged 18+ who have Internet access at work and work at a company with at least 100 employees.

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Microsoft owns your desktop and your browser (well, most of you). Google is the almighty search god. Who will win the battle for intranet search?

According to an iTWire poll, most think Google is the winner. However, Microsoft fans are significant (see Microsoft no threat to Google? Think again):

“An, which had 1111 respondents, asked the question: "Will Microsoft be a serious threat to Google in the search space?" 645 respondents answered no (58.1%), while 466 answered yes (41.0%). Microsoft, which is running a distant third behind Google and Yahoo, has been making a serious assault on the search engine business in recent times, with a massive rebranding and search product strategy exercise.

The launch of the Windows Live Search brand, the imminent launch of Microsoft's new browser, Internet Explorer 7, which will include Live Search as the default search box (despite protests from Google), and the announcement of an enterprise desktop intranet search facility integrated with the upcoming Windows Vista operating system are all evidence that Microsoft intends to be a dominant force in the search space.”

Bundling the search with Windows Vista is a massive blow for Google. Microsoft has invested hundreds of millions of dollars into improving their search engine. The 1000 pound gorilla is not down for the count.

For more intranet news visit www.IntranetReport.com

There exists a huge list of applications that originated on the Internet that have migrated to the intranet: search, content management, surveys, portals, wikis, blogs, podcasts, etc.  The reverse – applications migrating from intranet to Internet – is far more rare.

Sean McGrath of ITworld.com hypothesizes the reasons for the asymmetric flow of applications and why capitalizing on intranet investments for commercial resale is a tough hill (see The Asymmetric Web):

"Then came a period when Intranets were common and all of a sudden, software companies were not only hosting their own applications online but also making them available for deployment on intranets for a suitable fee. I would argue that part of the (fading) attraction of a big application framework such as, say, J2EE, was the idea that once developed as a J2EE webapp, an application can be hosted locally in exactly the same way as it is hosted on the Web.

Then began an awful period - which continues to this day, sadly -- of companies developing intranet applications and then concluding, erroneously, that the application can be deployed on the Web by just flicking the proverbial switch. There is an important asymmetry here between intranets and the internet. Applications can scale downwards - from internet to intranet - easily but the reverse direction - from intranet to internet - is rarely simple and often impossible. Millions of users, flash flood characteristics[1], five nines availability[2] are just some of the reasons (collectively referred to as "non-functional" requirements) why this asymmetry exists."

There are a few applications that originated inside the enterprise that have made it onto the commercial web such as financial systems (e.g. QuickBooks), customer relationship management (e.g. SalesForce.com), and others. Perhaps the biggest grand-daddy enterprise application moving to the Internet is electronic health records (see EHR enhances the doctor-patient relationship  and The business case for healthcare technology investment ).

The point though is simple: don’t develop intranet applications based on a business case of reselling that application on the Internet! An intranet application has a very defined focus – serving employees.

© 2006 Toby Ward - Prescient Digital Media