When Tweeting, one must be succinct.

When Tweeting, one tries to be interesting (and dare I say compelling).

Makes perfect sense for the British Government to draft 20 pages on the do’s and don’t's of Twitter and Tweeting to be sure that one can meet the remit of the first two points!  http://cli.gs/VhGDr

But seriously, mainstream organisations are starting to shift from the paradigm of being frightened of using social media to being frightened of not using social media. And by mainstream, I’m generally referring to large and medium sized businesses who are nervous about what a few bad customer comments through social media might do their reputation and share price.

However the fear of being a corporate dinosaur is starting to burn in many of these organisations.  So naturally the next step is to consider carefully and draft diligently a social media policy that will incorporate appropriate degrees of forethought and contingency planning -  so as to alleviate the company of the burden of embarrassment should their customers actually engage through these media and profess a personal opinion that is not aligned with current ‘messages’.

Can I blame these companies for being cautious? No.  Am I frustrated by the slow pace of evolution in conservative companies? You’d better believe it.

But to be fair, the lows of personal use of social media is increasingly becoming documented – particularly in relation to the issues of privacy and copyright of digital assets. And so it is understandable to see this hesitation take physical form through the drafting of policy that is more effective at quashing internal fear than I imagine it will ultimately be in protecting against public incident.