I think that there can be absolutely no doubt whatsoever that social media is 
becoming as much a part of society as email has as a form of communiation.  I 
don't necessarily believe that Facebook or Twitter will become defacto 
communication tools in the workplace - maybe we should call it "grassroots 
collaborative communication" or something like that to remove the heavy 
connotative meaning - but the tools will serve the same purpose.  For most 
people under 25, e-mail is snail mail.  Having to use it in the workplace feels 
like a step backwards to the dark ages for them.

I just read a news story on the unrest in Tunisia 
(http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2011/01/the-inside-story-of-
how-facebook-responded-to-tunisian-hacks/70044/).  The unrest is important 
news in its own right, but part of the article is about how Facebook provided 
quicker and more accurate information than any other source.  These stories-
on-top-of-the-story (meta-stories?) arise, IMHO, for two reasons: first, they 
provide information that people (and a lot of people) want, and second, they 
deliver it better than traditional methods - if they didn't, they wouldn't be so 
popular.  As more and more newsworthy events (sports or otherwise :)) 
generate a social media storm, the story-on-top-of-the-story will disappear 
because such reactions will just be normal.

This HAS to be a wakeup call to records and information managers.  Email 
became common in the workplace some 10 years ago, and companies are 
STILL trying to manage it effectively.  Communciation via instant messaging, 
Facebook, Twitter, and other social media is both much more complex and 
much more voluminous than email.  To stand by and just hope that old models 
will fix it is extremely shortsighted.

Thanks for the blog entry, Nick.

Wayne Hoff, CRM
Calgary, AB

These are my views and not necessarily my company's.

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