Sunday, May 23, 1999
SMALL-BUSINESS DIARY
Workers surfing on firm time
It turns out that business owners who think employees are sometimes using the Internet at work for nonwork-related Web surfing are, well, absolutely right on target about that. And it is a practice that is apparently growing.
SurfWatch Software, a division of Spyglass Inc., found in the first quarter of 1999 that nearly one-third of the average employee's Internet surfing has nothing to do with his job. That rate is double the amount of recreational surfing measured in SurfWatch's survey in the first quarter of 1998.
The SurfWatch finding was derived through the company's CheckNet program, which reviews a company's log files and analyzes which Web site or URL address visits are not work-related.
“Perhaps the most interesting thing about these results is that recreational surfing in the office continues to grow each quarter,” said Theresa Mar croft, director of marketing for SurfWatch, a company based in Los Gatos, Calif.
SurfWatch's Professional Edition software, which starts at $995 and won a 1998 PC Magazine Editor's Choice award, enables large and small companies to monitor Internet surfing from the work place, Ms. Marcroft said.
She said smaller companies of 20 to 30 people as well as larger insurance, banking and manufacturing firms are target markets for the software.
“Most companies use (SurfWatch) to check out trends (in their work place),” she said — not to rat out employees killing time.
Landscape changes
for female owners
The number of women-owned businesses has doubled in 12 years, with employment growing fourfold in the past decade and sales growing fivefold, according to the National Foundation for Women Business Owners.
Facts and trends of women-owned businesses indicate the business landscape of America has changed dramatically for female business owners. More than 27 million workers are employed at women-owned firms in the United States, according to the foundation's report “1999 Facts on Women-Owned Businesses.”
According to the foundation's research, female business owners are more reflective than their male counterparts when making decisions and are more likely to seek opinions and input of others.
Business bookshelf
From Bullyproof Yourself at Work by Gary Namie and Ruth Namie (DoubleDoc; $13.95): “The American Psychiatric Association recognizes a condition called acute stress disorder with symptoms that include disorientation, confusion, intense agitation and dazed detachment, sometimes followed by amnesia ... this is what bullying does.”
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