The risks of employee use of social media came into sharp relief this month when individuals working for Chrysler and for Aflac posted evidently unacceptable comments on Twitter and summarily found themselves dismissed. For many organizations, including Jefferson County, Colo., the benefits of social media outweigh the risks, however. Jefferson County maintains not only a corporate Twitter account, but a corporate blog and a Facebook fan page. 

Joe Palmer, CIO for the county, predicts that five years from now social media will be ubiquitous in the workplace, and it will merge with IT service management tools "as employees come to expect the walls between organizations and customers to be removed." In an interview with FierceCIO, Palmer shared his views on how the IT department is affected by social media, how risks can be mitigated, and what role IT service management tools will play in responding to customer outreach.

FierceCIO: Who are the main drivers of social media use in Jefferson County? 

Joe Palmer: IT, Human Resources and the Public Information Office.

FCIO: What benefits does the county reap from employees using social media at work?

Palmer: [We use] Twitter to share and collaborate, build reputation--it assists with recruiting and organizational image--communicate with colleagues and the community at large, share recommendations, share expertise, share contacts, pressure vendors and the like.  LinkedIn--again, much the same as with Twitter. We use LinkedIn for recruiting.

FCIO: Do you use social media in your day-to-day work? 

Palmer: I use social media actively, including Twitter and LinkedIn. I have a few IT staff who are also active tweeters. Almost the entire staff is active on LinkedIn. The organization has a corporate Twitter account, Facebook fan page and corporate blog. Several executives and staff members are active on Twitter. 

FCIO: What restrictions, if any, does the county place on employee use of social media? Do employees use Facebook or Twitter during working hours? 

Palmer: We do not restrict employee access to Facebook or Twitter during working hours. Employees actively use both. The lines separating what people use Facebook for--traditionally personal--and Twitter for--often business--are blurring.

FCIO: What risks does employee use of social media create for an organization? How do you mitigate these risks? 

Palmer: The only significant risk we see is potential damage to organizational reputation through uninformed staff members representing the county ineffectively or sharing false or confidential information about the organization. To mitigate, we have a policy governing the use of social media that restricts certain content including personnel matters, contract negotiations, legal opinions from being shared through social networking sites. The public information office coordinates the organization's official social media presence.

FCIO: How do you expect the daily workings of the IT department to change as social media tools are enhanced?

Palmer: ITSM (IT service management) and social media will merge as employees come to expect the walls between organizations and customers to be removed. For example, if I tweet about a @jetblue issue, I will get a response. Employees and our customers will come to expect the same thing from us. If a service fails or is not functioning effectively, employees will expect to be able to contact someone via social media or our ITSM platform and get assistance.

FCIO: What technologies do you use for IT service management? Do you have these tools deployed onsite or do you subscribe to a SaaS model? 

Palmer: We subscribed to Service-now.com approximately one year ago. We went with Service-now primarily because of functionality, the ease of implementation, the open architecture and ease of upgrades. It just so happened that it was a SaaS solution, too. We like that we do not have to host, to create a large support team, to install code, to patch servers all to maintain the ITSM solution. 

I believe that IT's own technology solutions should be as light-weight as possible so that we can focus on delivering customer solutions, not eating away at resources that should be available to customers with monstrous technology supporting IT. 

FCIO: Where do you see social media use in the workplace five years from now? 

Palmer: It will be ubiquitous. Two years ago, people didn't know what a tweet was. A year ago, they asked ‘why would you tweet?' Now, they are beginning to see the business case for real time communication and dialog.