I read an interesting article recently in which BT claimed that more communication now passes through business and social networking sites than by e-mail.
Whilst I am not entirely sure how one can work out that sort of statistic - or indeed what type of person would want to - there is an underlying message there that people in the professions would be wise to consider. Facebook is no longer confined to relaying images of drunken student parties and Twitter is becoming an important communication tool for many businesses.
The member firms of MSI Global Alliance (www.msiglobal.org) may be high quality, mid-sized law and accounting firms around the world, hardly the target audience in the minds of the developers of Twitter, but nevertheless, I wonder what percentage of them will have the increasingly familiar 'Follow us on Twitter' on their websites within the next 12 months.
Even the most apparently conservative of organisations need to begin thinking about this method of communicating with their various stakeholders. But they need to consider it carefully and put the right procedures and safeguards in place. We can all remember the outcry that followed some high profile redundancy notices that were sent to staff by text message ... The potential pitfalls are even greater in the networking world.
James Mendelssohn (jmendelssohn@msiglobal.org)
CEO, MSI Global Alliance
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