Rare is the firm that hasn't yet addressed controlling Internet usage, text messaging, instant messaging (IMing), and other forms of communication. This topic can quickly become heated, with some partners feeling very strongly that most, if not all, Internet activities are unproductive. A couple of comments like "Chris is checking Hotmail" and "Pat is on Facebook," and it isn't long before a policy is issued:

Access banned to third-party e-mail Web sites, instant messaging, blogs, and all social media sites. The Internet is to be used for research only!

What's Behind the Policies?

This article is inspired by a session of 40 managing partners that I led. In small group discussions, each table of managing partners separately explored two questions: one intended to provoke discussion about the depth of management's knowledge, and the second to explore why many are so uncomfortable with the practices.

The first question was, "Do you and others who manage your firm have a strong understanding of these technologies (IMing, texting, LinkedIn, etc.) and their application to the way you do business?" Exploring the first question brought to light the realization that these partners and the partners back in their offices didn't, in fact, know much about the potential business uses of these communication tools. They had questions of their own: What are they? Why should we care?

The second question was: "What factors do you think contribute to a lack of comfort in firms with these forms of communication?" It's fair to say people don't agree as to the effectiveness of various forms of electronic communications. Much of this difference can be attributed to lack of experience with the tools. The group was hungry to know how these tools could help their firm. More importantly, they realized the error in creating policies before fully understanding the answers to this question.

Contributing to Discomfort

The group identified several factors contributing to the lack of comfort:

1. Fear of the unknown: lack of knowledge and understanding.

2. Professionalism: Is it unprofessional? What image does it send?

3. Perceptions of waste: "unproductive" time; business vs. personal.

4. People skills: Are people skills underdeveloped when they communicate this way?

5. Legal concerns: liabilities and risk mitigation.

The first three, it was determined, could be solved through education. For this I strongly recommend engaging your team members to do the teaching. The fourth item might require some awareness training and preventative strategies. More interestingly, this is already considered an issue with e-mail in daily business use. Our collective experiences with the diminishing communications skills observed since e-mail's introduction is probably a big part of this concern.

Legalities will always be an issue. Audit trail, risk mitigation, and processes to ensure quality control are realities the profession must address. Our advice is not to consult lawyers who are timid about social media, but utilize lawyers knowledgeable and not fearful of emerging technologies.

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