Although, companies have slowly– and reluctantly– embraced social media in recent years, we’re still in a pivotal transition period. Industry leaders are still tripping over themselves to keep up with the competition while trying to fully understand why their Fortune 500 companies need social media strategists in the first place.

We are at a watershed moment.

Part of the reason I value social media is because it expands my professional presence beyond my title, beyond my desk. I’m not just a number cruncher; I’m not just the logistics manager. I have traveled around the world; my squash game needs [a lot] of improvement; I enjoy the humour of How I Met Your Mother.  Nonetheless, wait for it- there is a line, and that is where management is should be paying attention.

The question is not if we should incorporate social media into business. We’re way past that point. The question we need to ask is how?

Simply arming the staff with corporate Twitter and Facebook accounts is simply careless. Guidelines need to be put into place so employees understand what is in/appropriate and expected. What employees write publicly reflects on the companies which employ them. Even if their bios read, “My thoughts my own.” As Dorie Clark wrote in “It’s Not a Job Search, It’s a Permanent Campaign” (HBR): [Everyone] is also now expected to perform round-the-clock personal brand maintenance, and most people don’t even realize it.

As we move forward into the next phase of business conduct, we need to educate not only veterans of industry, but also newly minted graduates who have not known a world without the internet. I recall being shocked by a Wall Street article years after business casual dress codes had been adopted across the board. Apparently, some of the self-selecting audience of the newspaper did not realize that they ought not dress for work as if they were undergraduates ready for a hedonistic night in fraternity basements. Even as recent as two days ago, the newspaper ran an article titled, “Yes, Mark Zuckerberg Does Wear Ties Sometimes”. The Facebook CEO substituted his signature hoodie for a suit jacket and tie to meet President Obama.

I am definitely not saying, don’t have fun or don’t be yourself. I love fun and think there should be much more of it in the office. Just be mindful of your audience. Impressions count. Do your clients really need to see you dressed as a pirate dinosaur and chugging a bottle of vodka while riding a mechanical bull? Is it worth possibly losing a million dollar account or contract? (In both cases, probably not.)

 
Lisa Chau has been involved with Web 2.0 since graduate school at Dartmouth College, where she completed an independent study on blogging. She was subsequently highlighted as a woman blogger in Wellesley Magazine, published by her alma mater. Since 2009, Lisa has worked as an Assistant Director at the Tuck School of Business. In 2012, she launched GothamGreen212 to pursue social media strategy projects. You can follow her on Twitter.

_{Photo courtesy Doug Woods.}

If all your friends joined Facebook, would you? Maybe not.

But, if all the companies you wanted to work for are using LinkedIn to recruit, would you complete a profile? Probably.

Thus, began my 36-hour marathon of finally rounding out the LinkedIn profile I abandoned 5 years ago.

Conceptually, LinkedIn is great. It allows me to:

1. Share my resume with employers without attaching documents to my cover letter. No more worrying about viruses or document/ program compatibility.

2. Keep a live inventory of my professional experience. The link to my profile is permanent, but the information can be updated as often as necessary.

3. Collect endorsements from connections who have been vetted and recommended by others. I don’t make human resource departments do any more work than necessary to verify my profile.

Practically, LinkedIn has a few areas for improvement. I’ve encountered or heard about from my connections these problems:

1. It can be difficult for people to leave recommendations. People who run multi-million dollar departments / companies / investments can have a hard time figuring out how to leave me a recommendation. Yes, I am certain they are not just making excuses not to endorse me since I spent hours instructing about half a dozen people through the process.

2. Some people have two accounts and are not able to merge them. For these people, LinkedIn’s technical support group hasn’t been able to resolve the conflict. One person’s problem is attributed to having two emails with different middle initials; another has two accounts but only one email.

3. The algorithms aren’t always accurate. For example, LinkedIn suggested to one person they join the Dartmouth Class of 1987 group — She wasn’t even born, yet, in 1987!

LinkedIn was founded in December 2002, and launched in May 2003, and it’s growing faster than ever. And regardless of what problems some users might encounter, it is becoming more and more necessary to have a professional presence on LinkedIn. Here are some tips to maximizing your profile:

The Basics:

• Include a professional but inviting photo of yourself. You should be neatly dressed in front of a plain background. Smile.
• Provide a comprehensive outline of your work. Your resume should be up-to-date, with a focused summary.

Recommendations:

Recommendations are the most powerful piece of your virtual ecosystem. They will also take the most time and patience to cultivate. However, the reward is work the effort.

First and foremost, use these 2 rules when soliciting recommendations:

• Always be polite. Even if you don’t get the recommendation.
• Understand that people are busy. They are doing you a favor when they write you a public endorsement. If you don’t get a response after 2 reminders, move on to the next connection.

Try to get recommendations from people you reported to, people who report to you, and peers. Ideally, get three recommendations per position that you have held.

I have found that the best time to ask for an endorsement is at the time of initial contact- when you ask to connect. After the person has agreed to write something for you, use LinkedIn’s built-in tool for your request. The system auto-generates a link for your connection to follow and complete their testimonial of you.

Always make the process as easy as possible for the other person.

That said, the best method to help yourself is to help the other person.

1. Write a sincere and unique (Don’t call everyone a “rock star”. Be specific!) recommendation for the other person. This will give them an idea of what you expect them to write for you. It will also make them feel good.

2. Provide your connection with information they will need in writing your endorsement, like how and when did you meet, the kind of work you did together and what you’d like to have emphasized.

3. Offer to write a draft.

Make sure you know your way around LinkedIn enough to help your connections complete the process. Approximately one out of every three people I contacted needed some sort of further assistance.

Good luck, and let us know what tips work best for you!

Lisa Chau has been involved  with Web 2.0 since graduate school at Dartmouth College, where she completed an independent study on blogging. She was subsequently highlighted as a woman blogger in Wellesley Magazine, published by her alma mater. Since 2009, Lisa has worked as an Assistant Director at the Tuck School of Business. In 2012, she launched GothamGreen212 to pursue social media strategy projects. You can follow her on Twitter.

Via: Online Background Check Resource

She discusses here how technology such as e-books affected the library.

In one sense, e-books have changed very little about what libraries do or how we do it; they just allow us to deliver a basic library service in a different medium. Some people have said that e-books are “killing” the printed book or that they spell the end of libraries, but that hasn’t been my experience. To my mind, the e-book is not “killing” the printed book, just supplementing it. We are still buying physical books in large quantities and I expect that we will continue to do so for a long time. I would go so far as to say that I doubt the physical book will ever completely go away. Even if it does, libraries are more about information-sharing than about lending physical items; handling e-books may mean changes in some of our procedures but I don’t think that libraries will cease to exist when the e-book predominates.

E-books have, however, also been what I’ve seen people refer to as a “disruptive influence.” This doesn’t mean that their impact has been negative, but just that they’ve shaken things up in the library world, in both good ways and bad.

E-books have created a whole new area of demand for libraries. In many ways this has been a boon because it has enabled us to provide technologically up-to-date services to a segment of the population who may not have used libraries before. It’s great for customer relations when we can offer people a service that they want but may not expect to find at a library – and it’s clear that people want e-book lending and troubleshooting assistance. Currently, we offer e-books and audiobooks for download via a service called Overdrive, which we subscribe to as part of a statewide consortium. It is used almost to the point of straining the system; most of the books are checked out at any given time, and we get very frequent questions on how to use the service. We offered a class on using Overdrive as a test for patron interest and had 40 in attendance, which is pretty good for this kind of program at Howe Library.

The popularity of e-book lending also raises some complex questions for libraries. For instance, it necessitates that we reconsider how we allocate our budgets. How much should we take away from book purchases to fund e-book purchases? This is tricky because there are at least as many of our patrons who still don’t use e-readers as there are patrons who are enthusiastic e-book readers. Physical books work for everyone; e-books are only usable for a specific segment of our user base. The issue becomes especially difficult because we can’t always get the same books in physical and electronic format. As of this writing, out of the “big six” publishers (Random House, HarperCollins, Penguin, Hachette, Macmillan, and Simon & Schuster) only Random House allows libraries to lend e-books with no restrictions (learn more here). HarperCollins will sell e-books to libraries but requires us to re-purchase a book after it has been lent 26 times. Penguin recently announced that it would not be selling any new titles to libraries, and for a while, older Penguin titles that we had already purchased were unavailable for lending. (Actually, between the time I wrote that sentence and the time I’m editing it, they announced that they are pulling out of Overdrive altogether. A good basic summary of the situation is here.). Hachette, Macmillan, and Simon & Schuster also won’t sell to us. This aspect of the situation is, to put it mildly, frustrating. We want to give our patrons what they’re asking for but in many cases we just can’t. For instance, if you want to read the new Steve Jobs biography, which is published by Simon & Schuster, you’re stuck with the paper format if you want to get it from a library and/or if you don’t have the money to buy the e-book yourself.

Amazon adds even more complexity. For a long time, the company would not make Kindles compatible with Overdrive. It was a big deal when they finally decided to allow library lending of Kindle books, but the launch of that functionality was very quickly overshadowed by Amazon’s launch of its own separate Kindle lending program. And Amazon’s involvement is exacerbating the issues with other publishers. Amazon is radically changing the face of publishing in ways that are not necessarily beneficial for the publishing ecosystem. Now it’s launched its own publishing house, making it a competitor with other publishers at the same time as it is a vital distributor for them. I think that this makes the publishing houses even warier of participating in anything Amazon is involved with, and that includes library e-book lending.

Librarians and publishers are at least trying to talk to each other but it doesn’t seem as though much progress is being made yet. With the most recent news from Penguin, it’s hard to be optimistic right now. Although publishers have legitimate concerns about how they are going to make money in the world of e-books, I honestly believe that they are shooting themselves in the foot by not working with libraries, and causing a good deal of collateral damage in the process. It’s frustrating to see libraries get bad PR (“I can’t get such-and-such e-book from my local library” can feed into stronger perceptions of public libraries as obsolescent in the Internet age) due to factors out of their control.

On the other hand, there are rays of light. Many patrons are impressed that they can get e-books from their local library at all; it does help us to show that we are more “with the times” than some people who haven’t set foot in a library for years might expect. And we are evidently still able to provide reading material that our patrons want and enjoy, judging by the heavy use of the e-books that we are able to lend.

Lisa Chau has been involved  with Web 2.0 since graduate school at Dartmouth College, where she completed an independent study on blogging. She was subsequently highlighted as a woman blogger in Wellesley Magazine, published by her alma mater. Since 2009, Lisa has worked as an Assistant Director at the Tuck School of Business. In 2012, she launched GothamGreen212 to pursue social media strategy projects. You can follow her on Twitter.

LG: I first encountered the @howelibrary Twitter account in response to my praise of the librarians’ handling a recent power outage. Do you engage with a lot of people via social media?

HB: I’m working on increasing our reach through social media channels. As I write this, we have 210 followers and follow 137 accounts on Twitter, and 142 likes and 47 check-ins on Facebook. We usually get a few clicks on the links we post, and a couple of times per month someone will retweet one of our tweets or like one of our Facebook posts.

What I would ultimately like to see is people treating our social media presence as another natural avenue of communication with us, like e-mail or phone. Right now, I instigate almost all of our social media interactions. I monitor local hashtags like #upval and #uppervalley, and I have a variety of searches set up for tweets that mention relevant terms and that are posted by people close to Hanover. If a tweet comes up for any of these searches and I think the library could add something to the conversation by replying, I’ll reply. The responses vary between trying to give the library some “personality” and offering information. In the past couple of months, for instance, I’ve commiserated with someone about having to get up early, replied to a tweet complaining about not being able to find a good space to work in, and suggested some additional books for someone who enjoyed The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. No one has yet to directly tweet at the library requesting information, but I hold out hope that it will happen one day!

LG: How do you choose what to post on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and Flickr?

HB: For YouTube it’s fairly simple– if we make a video, we post it. (We aren’t creating lots of videos right now, so we don’t upload to YouTube often.) Our use of Flickr is similar, though a bit more sporadic, probably partly because we don’t always manage to get photo releases for everyone in an image (so we can’t distribute the photo) and partly because staff don’t remember that we have a Flickr account. We also put photos on Facebook if we think that our patrons would be particularly interested in seeing them.

Announcements of upcoming events and other library news always go out on Facebook and Twitter. Other than that, my primary consideration for what I post is whether it is likely to be interesting or useful to our followers. This is a highly subjective determination; I try to make note of which links get clicked on and/or which posts get a response and use that information to guide future decisions. Book-, library-, and information-related content predominates, although I’ve also shared things like Lifehacker articles and electronics reviews. It’s vital that libraries be perceived as unbiased sources of information, so I try very hard to keep our feeds viewpoint-neutral and to avoid politically-charged topics (unless I’m linking to a neutral explanation of a current political issue).

LG: What is the role of social media for libraries? Isn’t someone either a library patron or not? Can you convert him/her into becoming a library visitor?

HB: The purpose of a library is to educate, inform, and enrich the lives of its users, and social media provides a way for libraries to achieve these ends in a new medium that is becoming a major channel for communication and interpersonal interaction. Through social media, I try to inform people of library events and services in hopes that they will take advantage of whatever meets their needs or interests.

One of the best parts of social media is that I can do all of this proactively. I don’t have to wait for someone to come in and ask me a question at the reference desk. I can monitor the public stream for people who are already talking about things relevant to the library, and then I can join the conversation. It permits the library to add value to people’s lives when they may not have even been aware that we could help to begin with. And it enables us to do so in a way that feels personal. Howe places a premium on excellent customer service and on building relationships with our patrons.

There are certainly people who just don’t use the library, as well as people who may pop in occasionally but who are not regular visitors. But I absolutely believe that non-library-users can become library users if they’re given a good reason to do so – after all, turning non-users into patrons is part of my job!

If I make contact with someone who hasn’t used the library before, I’ve created an opportunity for that person to learn more about us, and hopefully to come to perceive us as valuable and start using the library in other ways. I don’t care whether this first contact occurs because someone wanders in to use the bathroom; to sit at a computer for five minutes or they encounter us on social media.

I’ve had successes in this area both in person and via social media. I’ve answered questions about what the library has to offer from people who had never been to Howe before and came in to attend a non-library meeting held in our building. In the online realm, I had one interaction with a local Twitter user complaining that the college library was too quiet for him to get work done over winter break. I found his tweet through a search, replied to let him know that Howe might be a suitable work location (after school gets out, it’s bustling here!), and he tweeted back to ask whether we had WiFi and to say that he’d think about checking us out. Whatever the medium, I’m just trying to put the thought in possible patrons’ heads that we are a useful resource.
 

Lisa Chau has been involved  with Web 2.0 since graduate school at Dartmouth College, where she completed an independent study on blogging. She was subsequently highlighted as a woman blogger in Wellesley Magazine, published by her alma mater. Since 2009, Lisa has worked as an Assistant Director at the Tuck School of Business. In 2012, she launched GothamGreen212 to pursue social media strategy projects. You can follow her on Twitter.

1. SMILE
As I mentioned, there are exceptions to my advice. So, if you’re a haute couture fashion model, you might want to skip to step two. Everyone else, you’re here to engage and collaborate. Project approachability. Smile! Be the “person I’d like to have lunch with,” not “person I’d rather walk up 20 flights of stairs to avoid rather than share an elevator with.” Be a confident, compassionate leader, not a dull, disinterested slacker.

If you’re really camera shy, you can use a logo or photo of an inanimate object. I wouldn’t advise it, though. People want to put a face to the tweets. Either option is still infinitely better than the default Twitter egg, however. If you can’t bother to put up any profile image, why should anyone bother to take you seriously?

 
2. PERSONALIZE
This step is an extension of picking a good profile photo to represent you. Whenever I look at a new Twitter profile, I look at the photo first [out of instinct], then the bio. Who is this person? Why would I care what s/he has to say? Tell your audience who you are — Concisely & directly: What is your function? What is your expertise?

I highly advise a link to a fuller bio for people who want to know more about you. My suggestions are LinkedIn or About.me If you have various social media accounts, the latter will neatly organize all of your redirects in one place.
 

3. HUMANIZE
Yes, there is a definitely a place for Twitter accounts that just broadcast news. They are called news outlets, like The Wall Street Journal or CNN. For most other companies, I believe it’s much more effective to humanize your Tweets. Because there will be some people who are only interested in corporate updates, I urge keeping two accounts. One that is business-oriented (Product launches, formal announcements and the such) and a second that allows for more creativity (Employee stories, thoughts about other industries, etc.). Humanize yourself and your staff. Who works at your company? What are they interested in outside of the office? Build an emotional attachment to your brand.

Hootsuite makes managing multiple accounts very easy, even on an Android phone.
 

4. BALANCE
If you plan to keep a business account that is not limited to formal corporate announcements, make sure you balance the ratio of personal to professional tweets.  I would aim to keep work-related updates around 70%.
 

5. SCHEDULE
Decide when you want to send out your updates. If your company is international, but based in the U.S. you might want to schedule tweets to out at 9PM US time to appear on an Asian timeline at 9AM. Figure out what time slots work best for your company and plan accordingly.

I’m currently experimenting based on Dan Zarrella’s concept of “contra-competitive timing.” In numerous cases, he discovered that the most successful times and days to publish new content are off-peak times. “It’s like when you’re at a noisy party and it’s hard to hear the person talking to you 2 feet away, but… When there is less other noise to compete with (ie fewer tweets, emails, blog posts, etc) your content can gain attention more easily.”

Again, I recommend Hootsuite for this job. Huge fan.
 

6. DISTRIBUTE
Now that you’ve decided XYZ day at XYZ time is optimal for you to tweet, don’t bombard your followers with all your insights at once. I don’t think that anyone needs to send out more than one tweet an hour. Any more than that, you’re should either be classified as a good friend (in which case, you should just text my personal phone number or email me directly) or a spammer (in which case, just stop. Stop now- seriously).
 

7. SPECIFY
You have 140 characters to tell me something. Give me details.

Pointless: Checked out some clothes. Totally going shopping.

Much improved: Went to Hermes fashion show with @heatherpixley. Must buy green cashmere turtleneck Heidi Klum wore.

Quality tweets attract quality followers.
 

8. CHOOSE
Don’t blindly follow everyone who follows you. Yes, it might feel a little rude, but it’s better than cluttering up your feed with updates that are completely irrelevant to you. I have no interest in buying real estate in Florida. Sorry.
 

9. ORGANIZE
The more time you spend on Twitter, the more feeds you will follow. Make organized lists and use them. Otherwise, things have the potential to become very messy and overwhelming after your feed tops 50 unless you only follow very niche accounts which don’t update often.

It’s also a great public service. I’ve found some great lists compiled by others. I can follow 36 new photographers or 63 CEOs in just one click.
 

10. ENGAGE
Give. Receive. Share.

Exchange information and build relationships. This is how you will make the most of your time on Twitter.

Empower yourself and others. Remember, we’re here to be social. In fact, Social Media Week’s theme in 2012 focuses on “Empowering Change through Collaboration. This theme is designed as a call to action, allowing individuals- like you- and organizations around the world to explore how social media empowers citizens, increases mobility, enables mass collaboration, develops hyperlocalism, maximizes interconnectedness, fosters knowledge creation & sharing, bolsters leadership, and encourages global empathy.”
 

11. EXPERIMENT
Twitter is best understood and used by those who do. Experiment. Everyone needs a different strategy. Find the approach that works best for your specific case. I would be remiss not to tell you to heed caution in your activities, though. This is a very powerful vehicle for communication. The larger the corporation, the higher up in management, the more visible you will be. Be vigilant in your messaging choices and stay on course.
 

12. ENJOY
Of course!
 

I hope this list helped you. I could go on, but I like the alliteration of Twelve Twitter Tips. Also, I reached my word limit for this post.
 

Lisa Chau has been involved with Web 2.0 since graduate school at Dartmouth College, where she completed an independent study on blogging. She was subsequently highlighted as a woman blogger in Wellesley Magazine, published by her alma mater. Since 2009, Lisa has worked as an Assistant Director at the Tuck School of Business. In 2012, she launched GothamGreen212 to pursue social media strategy projects. You can follow her on Twitter. 

Time and time again, almost since its very inception, people expounded about the idea of too much engagement, that they aren’t interested in hearing about where their Facebook friend is headed, or what time they woke up. The conundrum is that designers are still discovering or defining the fine line between innovation and overload.

Kincaid’s worries are that social technology will penetrate too much of society and encroaching on privacy and life – and that there should be a cessation. When do we know to stop? For the future, with this oversaturation people are likelier to embrace niche networks and disconnectedness.

Ogince’s contention was that social technology needs to be humanized. He’s disappointed in it, saying it’s failed to a certain extent. It needs to be personalized and aim at assuaging to the general public with social health programs (for example, have physicians advise patients, or an app that encourages people to quit smoking).

If not that, at the very least, the programs that now exist should sharpen skills, or built on them.

Social technology is still in its infancy and it has a long way to go but both Ogince and Kincaid articulated the need for a shift in the direction that its heading towards.

Mehrunnisa Wani hails from Kashmir, India. She is currently a masters candidate at the Columbia School of Journalism learning to report stories in various mediums, all the while familiarizing herself with the digital media boom so she can utilize those skills to connect the world one story at a time. In the future she hopes to cover conflict zones, learn to code and change the world – simultaneously. She resides in Queens, New York. Follow her on @mehrwani.

“What’s the best thing you’ve created? I don’t know. Come around tomorrow.” – Camilo LaCruz

Believe it or not, the ingredients for social change are collaboration, creative minds, and a days worth of idea generating.

With their collaborative methodology RAPP hosted it’s first rappathon workshop, tailored to bring developers and designers together to explore concepts that might someday enrich thousands, if not millions, of lives.

In league, they worked towards creating technology that could work for the people, by the people. This hackathon, much like the others sprouting across the tech scene, are increasingly involving people.

After pairing up individuals and a tidbit of mix –and-matching, groups moved from station to station picking up where the last team left off so others could expand on the idea or share their two cents.

The web apps that came out of this aimed to improve the lives of individuals, or at the very least assist people in some regard. One of the ideas yielded was a map that would track a daily commute, keeping in mind the money, number of calories burned, and the carbon footprint. This would be linked to a social network, which would inform friends, family, coworkers of the commute and in the end, the data would be accumulated over a period of time so that the commuter can ascertain what method is cheaper, less time-consuming, or less arduous.

The apps weren’t launched but the organizers graciously shared the ideas in hopes of someone developing it. It’s still about experimentation and there are still ways of transforming life. If there is a social need, an app can fulfill it.

Mehrunnisa Wani hails from Kashmir, India. She is currently a masters candidate at the Columbia School of Journalism learning to report stories in various mediums, all the while familiarizing herself with the digital media boom so she can utilize those skills to connect the world one story at a time. In the future she hopes to cover conflict zones, learn to code and change the world – simultaneously. She resides in Queens, New York. Follow her on @mehrwani.

“What does the Internet have to with foreign policy and diplomacy? In this day and age, if you care about human rights you have to care about the Internet,” said Alec Ross, senior advisor for innovation, Office of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

As evident from the Arab (Internet) Spring, social media was an effective vent for the outrage and the wave of the frustration that swept through Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Yemen, and, most recently, Syria.

Tweeples, Facebookers, and YouTubers worldwide were all proponents of this change. With their succinct slogans, videos, and blog entries they encapsulated the depth of the oppression. The revolution was filled with narratives of twitter handles and even fact-checking was a collaborative effort, or what veterans would call a crowdsourcing activity.

Some dubbed it as the greatest tools of this age and others went as far as crediting it for fermenting the chaos and subsequently, toppling regimes. Despite the divergent views on the platform, it catapulted social justice campaigns worldwide, abetting and enabling leaderless protests.

The role of technology is, of course, integral –and now becoming closely intertwined with diplomacy. With governments realizing this, some are constricting expression and others such as the United States are allowing its ambassadors, some 195 have twitter accounts and 170 have Facebook accounts, according to Ross.

Ross, however, doesn’t credit technology—wholly—for the toppling of dictatorship-based regimes, but he is finding solutions to the gravest health, economic, social problems in developing nations through social media applications. It’s a new wave – the social networking-diplomacy era, where fostering ties between nations is done through programs like Apps4Africa, bringing fifteen nations and discussing solutions which, in the end, will yield innovative methods in tackling economic development issues and paving ways for sustainable long-term projects.

The consensus is that it is a tool for civic engagement, where information is readily available and movements are accelerated, but what happens when people achieve their goal, when governments are overthrown? Who helps with picking up the crumbs? Are plan of actions created?

“Though social media has proven to be a tool for dissent, it has not yet proven to be a successful tool for governance,” said Ross. With tools set forth by the State Department, Ross hopes that governance connects with the governing and social media takes out the implicit elitism in governing. Two things for sure, social media is equalizing the world and creating a forum of communication between the governing bodies and the people. Social media has become the weapon of the first world, but what about the third world?

Mehrunnisa Wani hails from Kashmir, India. She is currently a masters candidate at the Columbia School of Journalism learning to report stories in various mediums, all the while familiarizing herself with the digital media boom so she can utilize those skills to connect the world one story at a time. In the future she hopes to cover conflict zones, learn to code and change the world – simultaneously. She resides in Queens, New York. Follow her on @mehrwani.

Luciano is a regular contributor to Italy’s specialized reviews on administrative law issues and has spoken at numerous international conferences on public contracts, public network utilities and town planning law. He is also an officer of the Italian Army Reserve. Every year, he dedicates time and expertise towards the NATO Corps and serves as a LEGAD (Legal Advisor). Today, we’re learning more about him.
Luciano, tell me about media when you were a child.
I was not even 10 years old when I learned about the death of Judge Vittorio Occorsio in 1976. I found out through traditional media at that time: TV and newspapers. At that time, any given Western European country had only 2 or 3 national TV channels. Everything was completely different back then — Spain was still led by Dictator Francisco Franco; Germany was split in two and the internet could not even be imagined by common people.

Today, children have plenty of new methods to get information about the world around them, including the internet and social media. I think that having more information sources is always an improvement. However, parents need to take responsibility of guiding their children through the many media options: TV, internet — anything.
Having a very international perspective has always been one of your main goals. In this context, does social media help tremendously in broadening your horizons?
Absolutely, yes. Before social media was commonly diffused and accessible, the only way to widen one’s view of the world was by travelling. Beautiful. Enjoyable. But complicated and expensive. Now, it is much easier and cheaper to embrace international perspectives by sharing someone else’s experience through the web via text, photos and video.

On the job, social networks and discussion forums allow for the exchange of professional ideas with colleagues beyond Italy. Additionally, I am able to find new ways to provide my professional services globally.
What do you see as the main difference in social media use in Italy compared to the United States?
Social media communication in Italy is an important field of expression for political organizations. Italians have tired of seeing the same faces as Ministers, Presidents and members of the Parliament for the past 40 years. They are sick of making heavy sacrifices so that government officials enjoy unlawful and enormous privileges.

Consequently, Italian blogs and other social media have become tools of political aggregation. One of these movements is “5 Stelle,” founded by Beppe Grillo. He started a political campaign based on environmental issues and fought against global market control by financial lobbies worldwide (entities like Goldman Sachs or the rating companies: Standard & Poors, Moody’s, Fitch, etc.). The campaign talked to the people about “conspiracy theory.” However you want to consider it, today, “5 Stelle” is a true political organization present on the board of many local governments, and it gives a voice to underrepresented opinions on “official” public information channels, like major TV stations and newspapers.

Another interesting project was started by Luca Cordero di Montezemolo, the CEO of Ferrari. He is also a key player in the FIAT group and within the Italian economy. His foundation is “Italia Futura,” focused on pushing innovation and the replacement of the entire old-school political guard — In Italy, commonly considered dinosaurs. Using social media as a platform, his website attempts to aggregate the youngest and most brilliant minds in any intellectual field to push out outdated politicians. I like this project greatly. I think it has very good vision and intent.
In 2007, you joined Grispini & Partners, Law Firm in Rome, as a partner and chief of the Administrative Law Department. Due to high levels of discretion and confidentiality, not much is known about the firm other than that it was involved in some of the most important real estate operations of the last years: the Enel (the Italian National Energy Company) spin–off, the re-organization of the real estate patrimony of Ferrovie dello Stato (the Italian State Railway company), and the constitution of the Real Estate investment fund of the Autonomic Region of Sicily. Where does social media fit in under such circumstances?
Strict confidentiality makes the situation difficult. It’s quite interesting to observe how big real estate and financial groups manage their public communication. Very often, these companies don’t consider social media communication at all. In my opinion, it’s not wise for them to undervalue this topic as a part of their public information policies.
As a professor, you have taught at the University of Dusseldorf; the University of Malta; and the Scuola Superiore dell’Economia e delle Finanze (the internal Superior School of the Economy Ministry). Do you cover legal issues in the context of social media in any of your courses?
I have covered legal issues in some of my courses, especially those which involve students who are military personnel. An inappropriate use of social media can compromise the image of a whole nation or cause a strategic action to fail.
Is social media and law becoming a growing trend in the discussion of law?
Yes, absolutely. There are plenty of discussions about issues related to intellectual property, the protection of the privacy, national defense issues related to military secrets, etc. The list is very long.
Please share your thoughts on freedom of speech on the internet as it pertains to individual rights and professional limitations.
I don’t agree with any limitation to the freedom of speech. However, it’s equally important to balance professional limitations, by which we mean those limitations on the freedom of speech related to occupational roles and duties. Non-disclosure agreements typical for lawyers, advisors and military personnel can be reasonable. Anyone who accepts a commitment, an appointment or a role, ought to be aware of the associated boundaries.
You are interested in freedom versus reputation. Please explain.
It’s quite simple. Anyone’s freedom is limited where another’s freedom begins. Everyone should be free to say whatever they want, but when they use this freedom, they must take responsibility for their actions. Thus, it is important that we be able to authenticate the identity of anyone who publishes information on the web that can affect someone else’s life and reputation. An exception, however, would be for the identity of dissidents in dictatorship countries since anonymity is vital for personal safety and the development of democracy there.
Should companies have the right to control their employee’s online activities regarding personal opinions?
Absolutely not. The only acceptable exception should be military personnel for the reasons we discussed above, and only within the limit of what is strictly necessary. Whenever there isn’t any risk to national security, freedom must be respected, regardless of military status.
What is the best way to distinguish personal versus professional online identity?
If it’s not clear by context, one can declare his/her identity and affiliation. For example, I now state that I am sharing my personal opinions as an individual, unrelated to my law firm or the Army.

Lisa Chau has been involved with Web 2.0 since graduate school at Dartmouth College, where she completed an independent study on blogging. She was subsequently highlighted as a woman blogger in Wellesley Magazine, published by her alma mater. Since 2009, Lisa has worked as an Assistant Director at the Tuck School of Business. In 2012, she launched GothamGreen212 to pursue social media strategy projects. You can follow her on twitter.