Issue link: https://epubs.iltanet.org/i/43390
SETTING THE COURSE FOR THE FUTURE So what's a risk management technologist to do (short of cowering in fear under a desk, that is)? This community needs to do the same things that were done to tame the beasts of word processing documents and memos, the same things that were done with electronic mail and instant messaging platforms. In a very real sense, the more things change, the more they remain the same. However, with a nod to "The Information" author James Gleick, the community needs to do those things faster than ever before: • Learn about the latest tools that knowledge workers are most interested in using. Take the meeting and make time for a demo with the sales representatives of any and all software companies that could have an impact on the manner in which your coworkers interact with each other and the outside world. Watch, listen and, most important, ask questions from a perspective of how each can grow into the product it needs to be when fully integrated into a corporate environment. • Be definite and clear about telling those software representatives what needs to happen to increase the maturity of their tools. There's a very good chance they won't have much, if any, of a development road map in that regard until they are educated in the history of the travails of corporate users. When an individual interacts with another on behalf of the corporation, the corporation needs the ability to declare some of those interactions as records and manage them as such. That could take the form of simply logging the interaction; the ability to preserve the content of the interaction 22 Corporate Law Departments ILTA White Paper for a certain period of time after which it can be discarded; or the ability to suspend the purge schedule in the event a dispute arises that concerns the nature of the interaction. • Start thinking about other ways to create some sort of good-faith effort at managing the use of social media tools until the above point can filter back through the software development lifecycle. In other words, be prepared to be creative if such tools are going to be used while the products are still immature from this perspective. Other tools might be able to provide some form of interaction logging if the actual tool for interacting cannot. For example, a network forensic tool could be used to at least log the existence of an interaction between a corporate knowledge worker and another — inside or outside of the firewall — using Skype, even if the content of the interaction is not readily accessible. • Continue to educate those empowered to speak on behalf of the corporation that they have an obligation to do so responsibly. Continue to educate those entrusted with corporate assets that they have a responsibility to guard them. Remind them that the same rules of communicative conduct apply to the newest forms of interaction as they do all others. The moment a new tool is approved for even limited use, update the acceptable usage policy to include the new tool, and audit the policy for compliance — as best as one can. ILTA