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Tuesday, May 08, 2007
IT departments blocking LibSyn
I recently got another LibSyn account to host the multimedia files—audio and video—that I use in a side business I’ve been running since 2001. It works great: The price is right, the files stream quickly, what could go wrong?
A few people had trouble getting the files to play. I went through a variety of troubleshooting steps before, on a whim, asking these folks to contact their IT departments to find out if they are, by any chance, blocking access to LibSyn. Turns out they were. IT had made the decision that employees should not be able to download or listen to podcasts distributed through the LibSyn system (and, one would presume, any other podcast network or hosting service).
Is this IT’s decision to make? Considering the number of business-oriented podcasts, it makes sense to allow employees to take advantage of the medium to improve their professional skills and, by extension, their value to the organization. I understand the potential bandwidth concerns, but IT should raise this issue in response to a decision to allow employees to get and/or listen to podcasts at work (as long as they are mostly work-related). The decision-makers at the business level can then decide whether it’s worth improving bandwidth.
This strikes me as a business decision, not an IT one.
