Via Steve Rubel comes news of another brilliant theory of effective management: blocking RSS feeds:

In case you hadn’t heard about it, some companies have begun blocking RSS feeds at the firewall. The rationale for this short-sighted, counterproductive bit of paranoid stupidity ranges from bandwidth worries to productivity concerns. The first I heard of this was from a reader of my monthly email newsletter. I’ve been cajoling my 2,500-or-so readers to switch to RSS for well over a year now. This particular reader wrote back saying he’d be happy to give RSS a try but for the fact that his company has banned RSS.

That just brilliant. So when product managers and product marketers want to monitor what's being said about their products - their management instead throws a cone of silence over them. I love the rationale behind this - it's to improve productivity:

The rationale behind monitoring employees, according to Newman, is that a computer at work is a corporate tool for enhancing the employee’s productivity. Because some people abuse that privilege by sending personal e-mail and viewing movies during working hours, employers feel they have little choice but to monitor what their workers are doing.

Ok, here's a tip to every manager and IT staffer who's ever had that thought - lie down until it goes away. If you have people who are not doing their jobs, then there's a simple procedure: document the problem, and - if it doesn't stop - terminate the employee(s) in question. Punishing the whole class instead of having the guts to address real problems simply lowers morale and productivity. Yeah, that's a brilliant management strategy. To follow it up, I suggest holding $100 bills up and lighting them on fire.

The same sort of stupidity is blocking mp3 downloads. Yes, I understand the legal issues, given the current state of cluelessness at the RIAA. At the same time, your marketing department might well want to monitor podcasts covering the industry you're in - there could be good news to tout, or negatives to counter. Of course, there's also the cone of silence approach. That works so well in negative PR situations.