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Q8-8 2026?

A sound principle in business is to never ask a question to which you do not want the answer.
We can extend that principle to social networking; never set up a site that will generate content for
which you have no effective response!

Internal Risks from Social Media

The increased adoption of social media has created new risks within organizations as well. These
risks include threats to information security, increased organizational liability, and decreased
employee productivity.
First, the use of social media can directly affect the ability of an organization to secure its infor-
mation resources. For example, suppose a senior-level employee tweets, “Married 20 years ago today
in Dallas,” or “Class of 1984 reunion at Central High School was awesome,” or “Remembering my
honeymoon to Hawaii.” All of these tweets provide attackers with the answers to password reset
questions. Once attackers reset the user’s passwords, they could have full access to internal systems.
Thus, seemingly innocuous comments can inadvertently leak information used to secure access to
organizational resources. Unfortunately, it turns out that it’s not a good idea to tell everyone it’s your
birthday because your date of birth (DOB) can be used to steal your identity.
Employees using social media also can unintentionally (or intentionally) leak information
about intellectual property, new marketing campaigns, future products, potential layoffs, budget
woes, product flaws, or upcoming mergers. It’s not just information leakage, either. Employees
may install unauthorized apps that deliver content using SM that bypasses existing security
measures. Or worse, they may use their corporate password at less secure SM sites.
Second, employees may inadvertently increase corporate liability when they use social
media. For example, suppose a coworker regularly looks at SM content with questionable sexual
content on his or her own smartphone. The organization could be slapped with a sexual harass-
ment lawsuit. Other organizations may face legal issues if employees leak information via social
media. Schools, healthcare providers, and financial institutions must all follow specific guidelines
to protect user data and avoid regulatory compliance violations. Thus, tweeting about students,
patients, or customer accounts could have legal consequences.
Finally, increased use of social media can be a threat to employee productivity. Posts, tweets,
pins, likes, comments, and endorsements all take time. This is time employers are paying for but not
benefiting from. Forbes notes that 64 percent of employees visit non-work-related Web sites each day.
Among the SM sites that are most detrimental to employee productivity are Tumblr (57 percent),
Facebook (52 percent), Twitter (17 percent), Instagram (11 percent), and SnapChat (4 percent). 48
From an employee’s point of view, you might think a little lost productivity is OK. But imag-
ine you’re the employer or manager, which hopefully you’ll be at some point. Would you mind if
your employees spend their days using SM to look for another job, chat with friends, or look at
vacation pictures when your paycheck is tied to their productivity? What if SM is being used for
interoffice gossip that creates HR problems, morale issues, and possible lawsuits? Smart manag-
ers will understand that, like any technology, SM comes with both benefits and costs.

Q8-8 2026?

So much change is in the air: social media, Web 2.0, Enterprise 2.0. Is there an Enterprise 3.0
around the corner? Will social media become more unified on a single platform or become more
fragmented across many different platforms? We don’t know. However, new mobile devices with
innovative mobile-device UX, coupled with dynamic and agile information systems based on
cloud computing and dynamic virtualization, guarantee that monumental changes will continue
to occur between now and 2026. (See Figure 8-15.)