Will Richardson has an excellent post, Don't, Don't, Don't vs. Do, Do, Do, in which he muses on "acceptable use" policies of social media in schools and how restrictive and anti-learning they can be. Having spent the past several months working with clients on integrating social media into their organizations, this post really resonated with me. I'm finding that while a few places embrace social media as an exciting opportunity, many more are worried about defining and restricting every possible misuse of social media they can imagine. And I have to say that I'm consistently amazed at how imaginative people are in identifying potential problems. Where's that creativity when they're thinking about using this stuff?

Anyway, Will suggests that instead of a 10-page list of "dont's," we need an "Admirable Use" policy that positively describes the ways in which we'd like to see people using social media for learning. The items he would include are:

“Do use our network to connect to other students and adults who share your passions with whom you can learn.”
“Do use our network to help your teachers find experts and other teachers from around the world.”
“Do use our network to publish your best work in text and multimedia for a global audience.”
“Do use our network to explore your own creativity and passions, to ask questions and seek answers from other teachers online.”
“Do use our network to download resources that you can use to remix and republish your own learning online.”
“Do use our network to collaborate with others to change the world in meaningful, positive ways.”

For companies and organizations, I'd modify this list and add a few other items, as follows:

Do use our network to connect to colleagues and peers with whom you can share your passions and learn together.

Do use our network to find experts both within and outside of our organization to gain knowledge, information and perspectives from around the world. Use our network to reach outside of your normal geographic and interest groups to connect with people in a variety of disciplines and from a range of cultures.

Do use our network to publish and share your best thinking and ideas. Seek out feedback and opportunities to refine your thinking. Use multimedia (visualizations, video, audio) to further explore and process your thinking.

Do use our network to explore your own creativity and passions, to ask questions and seek answers from other peers and colleagues online. We know that creativity at work results from exploring a variety of questions and answers across disciplines and we support your ability to do this.

Do use our network to download resources that you can re-use and remix or that will improve your productivity and ability to collaborate with others.

Do use our network to track trends and to listen to what people are saying about our industry, your profession, our customers and key problems and issues facing the people with whom we work.

Do use our network to identify problems and to respond to customer issues and complaints using the same standards of professionalism and courtesy you bring to your daily work. We trust you to use phones and email and to conduct yourself professionally in face-to-face meetings, so we know you will do the same in your social networking contacts.

Do use our network to collaborate with others--both within and outside of our organization--to change the world in meaningful and positive ways.

What do you think? Would you add others to the list?

Flickr photo via Luc Legay

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