Luke Simonds of Booz Allen Hamilton talks at lunchtime about what he's seen so far

Journalist David Tebbutt links from his blog to an article he wrote for Information World Review entitled Genie in a Bottle. In it, he explores the deep fear that some companies have about introducing social computing into their operations. As Al Tepper, head of online development at Caspian Publishing points out in the piece, some companies have quite valid reasons to be scared - and they should be. In his words, "if you’ve got something to hide, you’ve got something to fear." As Tebbutt concludes:

This is bad news indeed for those who maintain their position through manipulation, hoarding information or playing politics.

In which case, you have bigger, more fundamental issues to worry about than social media.

For anyone who thinks that customers having online voices is a passing fad or something that can be fought with bare teeth or lawsuits, you might want to heed the tale of the ad agency that sued a blogger for badmouthing a client - and found themselves on the receiving end of an avalanche of bad PR and hostility. Individuals and communities are online and are here to stay. Some of those individuals - and perhaps entire communities - may have negative things to say about your company. You are going to need a better strategy for dealing with that than Shut them down.