Your organization has a problem with its employees. Too many people are going to Happy Hour after work and spilling important information about future expansion plans and other details about top-secret intellectual property. This lack of operational security (OpSec) is starting to take a toll on the business. The company is loosing out on new opportunities, the competitors are undercutting its bids, and next-year’s new model is already being touted by the competitor. What’s worse is that you HR department is telling you that the next generation of employees grew up with Happy Hour and have very different thoughts about how it should be used. Their basic attitude is that all the “old folk” in the company need to get with it and start using Happy Hour. They don’t bother drawing a distinction between personal and work drinking and they don’t care about this OpSec problem. They’re completely aggro about it and are demanding that the company stop trying to keep them from Happy Hour.
After a long debate where many options were evaluated, the company finally has their solution to the problem: Company Bar. Yes, the plan is to renovate an office downstairs and install their own working alehouse, taproom, cocktail loungue, watering hole, and any other synonym for a place where beer, wines, and spirits are sold. This plan is genius! Now, instead of everyone leaving work to go to Happy Hour, everyone will just go downstairs after work and drink in an environment where no one has to worry about saying the wrong thing to the local purveyor of corporate espionage. Since they can act out their Happy Hour needs with corporate blessings, no one will feel the need to go to other establishments to wet their whistles.
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These are my thoughts on the effectiveness of corporate social media sites as a control to limit information leakage (I’m looking at you Yammer)
The Risk Dr ® 