A few weeks ago I was speaking to a travel-related site about some flight bookings. The person on the other end of the line was inordinately helpful, to the extent that they gave a first name I could call them back on. As an experiment, I looked them up using Google, entering first name (which wasn't that common) and company name.

Before long I found them on LinkedIn and Facebook, and I even had a reasonably good idea of where they lived. While I was merely experimenting, it's not hard to imagine a disgruntled customer who decides to take matters beyond the call centre.

This simple example shows why many people and organisations feel more than a little apprehensive about social networking and its relationship with the workplace. Not since the Domesday book have we had access to a facility that is quite so intrusive. The dilemma, despite what is a clear invasion of privacy and has very obvious risks, we continue to use such tools. The 800 million or more people...