Dan Ariely’s recent book “Predictably Irrational” surveys some of the social psychology research about what happens when you make voluntary acts transactional.

A common theme seems to be emerging here: there’s a willingness to support an employer who requires the use of social media tools for in-the-flow activities, but not for above-the-flow activities. Those must be entirely voluntary and may not be mandated by the employer.

Here’s my question: given that everyone agrees that the reflection and analysis that occurs in the above-the-flow activities is incredibly valuable, why shouldn’t an employer strongly encourage or even require employees to participate? It might be the incentive some folks need to stop sleepwalking through life.

- Mary

Playing a devil’s advocate trying to achieve social media nirvana. That is a tough task.

In-the-flow blogging is good and can be mandatory. I whole heatedly encourage that change in process. (Although wikis are a common alternative for those in-the-flow tasks.)

Out of the flow blogging is also good, but should not be mandatory. (Encouraged? yes!!)

One of the reasons I continue to blog is to spend some time each day thinking about my job and writing about what I do or want to do. But not everyone wants to do that.

If you make it mandatory, how do you enforce the rule. I see the rise of blogging police stalking the ivy-covered walls in the black uniforms, wielding truncheons, and badgering those who have not externalized their thoughts.

I think the “in the flow” uses (eg blogs as project journals/records) are perfectly fine – mandatory seems to hard a word even here though, it’s just the way the job is done. (It does sound a little harsh to tell someone who routinely files reports as part of their job that it’s “mandatory”. It’s just their job.)

But the push back, I think is not just from the fact that keeping a personal reflection and learning journal is “above the flow”. It’s also the suggestion that this can/should be used as a mandatory device to capture tacit knowledge. Personal reflection and learning journals are just that – personal. Some people blog their personal journals publicly, most don’t. The voluntarism of it is where the value lies – as Dave Snowden says, knowledge cannot be conscripted it can only be volunteered. To make this kind of blogging mandatory destroys the value because it’s no longer a spontaneous act of giving arising out of personal interest and insight – it’s a “required” activity which will be judged on external criteria (these come with making something mandatory), and which will very probably be gamed in order to meet those criteria, losing in most cases a connection with the real person underneath.

Let’s say all managers are told “you will blog every day”. I know from personal experience that blogging frequencies and rhythms differ widely from person to person. Sometimes you need a dry period to be able to resume fruitful blogging. Sometimes you just don’t have anything to say, in which case it is far better to stay silent. Individual sharing characteristics in mode, medium, frequency vary enormously simply militate against a standard that is applied to all.

So this isn’t just a question of the integration of work. It’s also an important question of power, autonomy and the space to share voluntarily.