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Sir John Sawers is due to take over as chief of the Secret Intelligence
Service in November, putting him in charge of all of Britain’s spying
operations abroad.

But entries by his wife Shelley on the social networking site have exposed
potentially compromising details about where they live and work, their
friends’ identities and where they spend their holidays. On the day her
husband was appointed she congratulated him on the site using his codename
“C”.

Lady Sawers had put virtually no privacy protection on her account, making it
visible to any of the site’s 200m users around the world who choose to be in
the open-access London social network on Facebook.

You can also follow the Army on Twitter. Or post a comment on its new blog. They're all part of the Army's new mission: social networking.

"If Ashton Kutcher can do it, the U.S. Army can do it," said Lindy Kyzer, who posts the Army's "status updates" on Facebook and "tweets" on Twitter.

You can also follow the Army on Twitter. Or post a comment on its new blog. They're all part of the Army's new mission: social networking.

"If Ashton Kutcher can do it, the U.S. Army can do it," said Lindy Kyzer, who posts the Army's "status updates" on Facebook and "tweets" on Twitter.

Even Gen. Ray Odierno, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, is on Facebook. With nearly 5,000 "friends," the four-star general is updating his status straight from the battlefield - something unheard of in past conflicts.

Gen. Michael Oates, commander of the 10th Mountain Division based at Fort Drum, N.Y., has been blogging from Iraq for months.

The Army announced the other day that it would get a million or more followers on micro-messaging site Twitter, just like “Punk’d” host and social networking superstar Ashton Kutcher. But catching to Mr. Demi won’t be easy — since many Army bases block Twitter on its networks.

It’s the latest example of the military’s schizophrenic relationship with social media.

BioInformatics LLC conducted a survey in November 2007 that found some interesting trends:





• 77% of life scientists participate in some type of social media


• 50% see blogs, discussion groups, online communities, and social networking as beneficial to sharing ideas with colleagues


• 85% see social media affecting their decision-making


• Discussion groups and message boards are still the most-used types of sites, but online communities are gaining fast


• User-generated content is not completely trusted for product information, but it is more trusted than information in printed trade magazines, editorial web sites, or online portals

Elsevier’s survey went a little further than the earlier survey, asking respondents to name sites. This generated a Top 11 list of social media sites in the sciences:





1. Nature Network (36%)


2. BioMed Experts (35%)


3. Facebook (35%)


4. MySpace (34%)


5. LinkedIn (33%)


6. ResearcherID (19%)


7. CiteULike (18%)


8. 2collab (18%)


9. del.icio.us (15%)


10. Connotea (14%)


11. Digg (14%)

What is surprising to me is that social media designed specifically to “socialize” traditional workflow functions aren’t used as much. In fact, Connotea, 2collab, and ResearcherID rank lower than most.

These results actually make me question the workflow mental model. Nature Network isn’t about workflow. BioMed Experts is about browsing social networks and connecting, so isn’t much about workflow. Facebook, MySpace, and LinkedIn? I don’t care how much you force-fit those into workflows, they aren’t about work. (LinkedIn can be about finding a job, but not about doing a current job.) Each one is about social connections.

The Defense Department made headlines earlier this year when it blocked access to the sites from military computers. In May, YouTube officials said they were pushing the Pentagon to reconsider. But this month, Army officials said they have no plans to back down and may block even more sites.

"Quite frankly, we had some other issues with respect to YouTube," said Maj. Gen. Jeffrey Sorenson, the Army's chief information officer. He cited an instance where a soldier's video showed up on a "terrorist website" and was altered to suggest that the solider opposed the Iraq war and wanted the U.S. to bring all its troops home.

"Once it's on the Internet it's always going to be there," Sorenson said. "In many cases some of these videos, unfortunately, were being maliciously affected."