This afternoon's Great Debate session, "Should Facebook Be Banned?" (as well as LinkedIn, Twitter, etc.) prompted many interesting comments and discussion, if not consensus. Gartner Analysts Nikos Drakos (ban it), Ray Valdes (keep it) and moderator Steve Prentice chewed through many of the thorny issues surrounding the invasion of consumer social networking tools into the workplace.

During the interactive portion of the sessions, 60% of the attendees said they used social networking sites. In addition, 68% of the attendees said their organizations did not ban access to such sites, while 25% did not.

As might be expected, most everyone agreed that outright bans were not a reasonable alternative. Implementing better management techniques and adherence to a corporate code of conduct are considered to be better alternatives. Managing the brand and allotting resources to manage an organization's presence in social networking were also concerns. "Just ignoring it does not make it go away as it continues to grow," noted one attendee.

Before the debate, 68% said Facebook should not be banned. Having listened to the arguments, that number grew to 81%.

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