Putting the Work into Social NetWORKs

An old friend and trusted colleague forwarded me an article by Greg Rickey, an east coast attorney with both military and federal experience, that warned of the potential threats to your security clearance if you use Facebook and/or Twitter. Having a security clearance myself, I have many professionals in my network who depend on their active clearance for continuing employment, so allegations that the increasingly pervasive presence of social networking sites and services in both professional and personal life may cause them to lose that clearance are obviously cause for alarm. Unfortunately, this needless fear-mongering adopts the sort of attitude towards technology that has tolled the death knell for many aging businesses and senior executives and employees. Rest assured that your security clearance (no matter how high it is) and your social networking can peacefully coexist provided that you can follow a few simple principles, and what's more, you will likely find that these powerful new communication tools may actually make you (and your clearance) more effective.

As a threshold matter, you ought to look at anyone who spurns technology that is in the throes of nearly global penetration and relevance with a measure of skepticism. Obviously, it's the role of your lawyer to help you to be careful, but he/she should also be a trusted business advisor who doesn't simply identify risk but also helps you manage it (and not simply avoid it). If anyone serious about a career that doesn't involve a name-tag or a hairnet asked me if they should avoid social networks, the short answer I'd give them is "NO!" Social networks have gone from being pastimes and distractions to fully functional business tools with many of the world's largest corporations advocating their use by employees (e.g. Accenture) and mid and small market companies following suit. The legal business is no exception; large firms and solo practitioners alike are leveraging the latest technologies to reach out to and communicate with clients and colleagues. The legal community has as many confidentiality obligations as any, and the only lawyers who are avoiding the social networking phenomenon are those either not interested in new clients or so afraid of their computers that they still insist on dictating letters.

As an additional note - for those who will insist that LinkedIn is for professional and the rest are for kids, note that LinkedIn and Twitter are currently implementing an unprecedented integration of their separate technologies.

With that in mind, if you can follow a few simple rules, go boldly forth with your Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn accounts:

1. Don't post private information in public spaces. Each of these services has both "public" and "private" sections for each user. There are dozens of both humorous and horrifying examples of users that have failed to understand this distinction - but for the moderately savvy professional, this should be no problem. Some examples: Don't post your personal phone number or address in any public area - and avoid listing them at all if you can. Don't post the exact location of your family's vacation until after you get back from it. If you hold a sensitive position, like a federal judge, don't post photos of your workspace, commentary on your work, or detailed itineraries of your whereabouts. (These things may seem obvious, but they're only listed as examples because someone has already done them)

2. Know your "friends". For the majority of these networks, you are in complete control of who you allow to see your information through a "friend request" process. This usually means that someone has to know you, and then send you an electronic "request" that you must affirmatively "approve" before they have access to you on the network. One of the best ways you can keep your network secure is to avoid allowing anyone into your network that you have not met or do not know personally. Accepting these requests automatically is just plain stupid - and if you're that desperate for attention then you don't need security clearance, you need counseling. Additionally, if any of your "friends" begins to act erratically online, their account many have been compromised and you should eliminate your connection to them (they'll understand). And if you happen to have or make friends overseas - be exceptionally cautious when allowing them into your network, and if you can avoid including them, do.

3. The Privacy Myth. The reality of any online activity is that none of it is completely secure or private. These networks all go to great lengths to keep your privacy to the maximum extent they can - but there's only so much they can do. If there is something you need to keep private, the best advice anyone can give you is to keep it offline. There a number of technologies in development capable of combing through all the world's social networking data, mining for information, intelligence, etc. If that knowledge scares you about what you put online, it should.

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There has been a great deal written by both early adopters and even conventional media outlets about the importance and utility of social networking sites and services in the workplace, so I won't bother weighing in here. If you haven't figured out by now that making strong connections is essential to professional success you don't need to wonder any longer why you're still washing dishes at the restaurant you'd like to own. Many people have come to expect the nearly effortless connectivity to professional contacts that these services provide, and a failure to do so may quickly label you as a dinosaur and not desirable to work with.

In the end, as with any new technology, it's really only dangerous if don't know or won't learn how to use it.