After closely following the news this week, two stories have been rolling around in my head, and although I'm not sure how they intersect, I believe somehow they do. Like that fun game of “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon,” there seems to be a connection between the stories, but I can't quite make out what it is yet.
The impetus for my thinking started with this week's slow-motion public self-immolation of Rep. Anthony Weiner. When I blogged last week on the subject, I still actually believed that someone had hacked Weiner's Twitter account. After all, a young, smart professional who was so obviously in the public eye, surrounded by savvy media handlers and PR advisors, would never be dumb enough to send questionable photos over a social media site like some drunken frat boy.
Because when it comes to social media, Weiner was doing everything right. He was a charismatic public speaker whose sound bites were terrific for YouTube. He had a sense of humor. He was engaging his constituency on Twitter and Facebook. He made social media communication with his followers a two-way street (although we're still finding out just how well he did this). Unfortunately, all this intelligence was brought down by his own hubris.
Our advice in last week's blog was drawn from the perspective that Weiner was a victim, and how social networking users could protect themselves from a similar fate. But now that he's finally admitted that he's behind (or rather, in front of) those incriminating photos, it puts a whole new spin on the situation. And as the facts unfold (there's something new every day, including new online gal pals and the fact that his wife is pregnant), there's still a cautionary tale for insurance.
What if the blogging, tweeting CEO of one of your client companies decided to “act out” and got caught? Worse, what do idiots like this do to the concept of social networking in the business world? The experts say that to keep things real, we shouldn't hand off all social networking to the summer intern. If the CEO's name is on the Twitter handle or blog, he or she should be tweeting or blogging, or at least approving the content. It helps enhance the business's authenticity. But what if the CEO is an authentic creep–or just uses incredibly bad judgment? It happened to the Aflac duck.
It's been an uphill fight for social media proponents to convince businesses, especially in our risk-averse industry, of the importance of being authentic and involved in the social media space. With the tug of a zipper, Weiner could be undoing all that good work.
My conversation last week with Jennifer Smith of Lockton on how businesses could avoid similar problems was fascinating, but I cringed as I typed her suggestion that they “consider firewalls and/or blocking social media use during office hours.” Yes, it may be common sense, but it's counterintuitive to the message of involvement and authenticity that social media experts have been promoting for the last several years. And it feels like a step backward.
On what seems like an unrelated subject, the other developing story that grabbed my attention this week is happening here in Chicago: a rash of violent urban crime in what are traditionally some of the safest areas of the city: the tourist meccas of Michigan Avenue and Streeterville. Thuggish teens are converging here in packs as large as 100, engaging in muggings, shoplifting and random attacks (one victim was an independent insurance agent who fought back; the gangbangers shoulda known better!).
What's different about these crimes is that police are calling them “flash mobs,” saying the gangs are coordinating the attacks beforehand on Facebook and Twitter. I guess it shouldn't be a surprise; considering that just under half of all Americans have a Facebook account, it stands to reason that a few of those 128.9 million might have criminal intentions. But it's just another example of how bad apples can use the powerful tools of social networking for all the wrong reasons.
The takeaway from both these stories is a concern that businesses worried about security and liability may begin to pull back from social media–a move that could jeopardize all the good things that this revolution has brought us.
One of my favorite eras in history is the 1920s, in part because so much of the technology we now take for granted was still new and evolving. The technology boom that we've experienced in just a few years is just as significant as the emergence of Ford's assembly line or the ubiquity of motion pictures. Let's hope that a couple of bad wieners don't ruin the cookout for the rest of us.
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