Over the past several years, the use of social media in the legal workspace has gone through an interesting evolution. Once simply thought of (somewhat unfairly) as employee time wasters, the Facebooks and Twitters of the world have more recently emerged as trendy and even (sometimes) useful marketing tools. In the near future, however, attorneys and legal administrators may find that social media have evolved yet again – this time to become your law office’s newest productivity tool.
Tison Rhine is the advisor to the State Bar of Wisconsin Law Office Management Assistance Program (Practice411™).
This is the hope of Facebook, at least, which in January began formal pilot testing of a more corporate version of the ubiquitous social network, currently dubbed Facebook at Work. Originally announced late last year, this anticipated service will, when rolled out to the public, compete in the growing market for enterprise-level collaboration software – a market that already has seen offerings from big hitters like Microsoft and Google, as well as from some promising Silicon Valley start-ups such as Slack, Hipchat, and Asana.
Facebook at Work will face broad competition not only from these sources but also from established practice-management solutions that offer their own collaboration tools. With so many alternatives, it may be a challenge to convince entrenched law firm partners and IT managers, two groups already susceptible to foot dragging, to adopt a productivity tool from a “social media” company. However, Facebook leaders hope the company will be able to leverage its widespread familiarity to encourage adoption of its program instead of competitors’ programs. Everyone knows how to use Facebook, the thinking goes, and if employees are going to spend at least some time “cyberloafing” on social media anyway, they might as well get some work done.
“Everyone knows how to use Facebook, the thinking goes, and if employees are going to spend at least some time “cyberloafing” on social media anyway, they might as well get some work done.”
Indeed, any of the approximately 71 percent of online adults (that is, American adults who use the Internet) who are already on “regular Facebook” should feel right at home with Facebook at Work. The differences are that with Facebook at Work, the employer creates the employees’ accounts (which are completely separate from any personal accounts), and everyone in the organization is automatically in everyone else’s network – no “friending” required. All posts are visible throughout the corporate network and the employer owns all posted content.
Facebook at Work, like regular Facebook, will include the ability to create groups, so that individual project teams can discuss group business with relative privacy. Also as on regular Facebook, users will have access to search, events, messenger, photo and video sharing, and a news feed, where each employee will have access to personal feed of posts that the software determines might be relevant to that individual.
If those services sound familiar, good. That’s the idea.
The way attorneys view social media is evolving, and as younger generations leave Facebook for Instagram, Yik Yak, and countless other services, social media are evolving with us. Ultimately, the goal of social media is for people to connect with one another and share information. So, if your firm or organization is seeking a collaboration tool that people will actually use, Facebook at Work is a service to look out for. Just remember to be careful about client confidentiality and work privilege issues, especially if you are in-house counsel.
