A Social Project Starts with the Business – Sample Stakeholder Questions

Today’s post is by Sarah Carter, General Manager of Social Business, Actiance. You may connect with Sarah on Twitter @sarahactiance or via LinkedIn.

As the General Manger of Social Business, my team and I work with many firms across the United States, Canada and Europe while they are making the decision to use social media for their business. Naturally, each firm is different, but they all share the common need to determine how they plan to use social media effectively within their organizations. Here at Actiance, we’ve learned that fully defining those needs and requirements helps support a successful launch of a social business.

Actiance begins each social media engagement and compliance project with a series of stakeholder interviews. These interviews draw out the business objectives for the project, in order that social is not viewed as a separate or an adjunct to the business. These questions are tailored specifically for the business – whether that business is wealth management, business or retail banking, a mortgage or an insurance business. We believe that by including all the relevant stakeholders for the business – from the financial adviser, insurance agent, mortgage broker, social media team, compliance representatives and technology liaisons the business and project will benefit right from the start.

• Who are your primary competitors? (names of companies)
• Is there anything that your primary competitors do significantly differently than you?
• Are they on social?
• What are your Business Priorities for the next 6 ‐12 months? (Maintain clients? Grow existing clients? Attract new clients?)
• What is your sales and marketing plan? Who is executing that?
• What marketing materials are used? (Brochures? Promotions? What about outreach or inbound?)
• What are the major challenges with the business? (Churn? Attracting new clients?)
• Are any of your users currently “social”?
• How “social” are your users now? For example, for users currently using LinkedIn, how would you rank their social media presence on a scale of 1‐4 (where 4 = socially mature)? What about other networks such as Twitter, or a websites, a blogs?)
• What initial thoughts do you have on which networks might be used for a pilot, and why?
• What time commitment are the end users likely to give to social per week? (30 minutes? 60 minutes 90 minutes?)
• How many clients are your users currently connected to?
• What type of content do you currently share with clients?
• What medium is used?
• How often is content shared?
• Can existing content be leveraged?
• Does your firm share non business content, such as your philanthropic works? Local events and news?
• Who creates the content?
• What does a successful social launch look like?
• What are your goals? Metrics? ROI?

Of course interpretation of the answers, and building that into a full business plan is what takes experience, but by uncovering the needs of each group, defining metrics for success, and developing a plan that meets the unique needs of your organization, we’ve found that firms are more successful when they launch social business. Is it time consuming? Absolutely. But is it worth it? You bet!

The Journey of a Social Commuter

Today’s #TravelTuesday post comes from Mitchell Muro, Social Business Associate at Actiance.

The life of a commuter. For me, it really is a love-hate relationship. I’ve never been opposed to long distance automobile travel, as I’ve been commuting 30 minutes plus, daily ever since high school, and now I’m already one year out of college, still commuting to my second home here at Actiance. One thing I am grateful for is that I’m fortunate enough to have a carpool. I suggest taking this tactic for anyone who plans to commute 30+ minutes to work and you know for a fact, there’s going to be traffic…every morning! Finding my carpool is actually a funny story. About the second or third day on the job, I was going through orientation, meeting everybody and listening to presentations from my future colleagues as they taught me everything there was to know about the company. As I’m listening to a “Facebook Best-Practices” presentation given to me by none other than Actiance’s pride and joy, @VictorGaxiola, I see on his Facebook timeline, “Moved to Morgan Hill, California – 2008.” ARE YOU JOKING ME! I come to find out one of my colleagues (who has now grown to be one of my partners in crime), Victor, lives literally 5 minutes away from me in Morgan Hill. Coincidence? No, I think he’s followed me here. Okay, back to the topic.

As an experienced commuter, I’ve seen my share of absurd, enraged, and flat out ridiculous drivers, and even passengers! It might just be me, but there’s something absolutely hilarious about driving on the 101, relaxed, in traffic, listening to music on your way to work, when suddenly you look out of the window to your right, and see a grown man singing his heart out to @CarlyRaeJepsen’s #CallMeMaybe…although it did sound amazing. Jokes aside, I do appreciate how social commuting can actually be, physically as well as social-networkingly (yes, I made it up). Let me explain, on my 40-45 minute ride up to work with my colleague, we ALWAYS talk about random things – the latest trends on twitter, who won which #Oscars2013, how the weekend was, the new social network of the week, etc. It’s great to just relax and talk to someone freely before you arrive at work. If you think about it, the freeway/road is almost a social network of its own. One huge road successfully connecting everybody to their destination so they can see the people they need to see, as they communicate with other drivers on the road with hand gestures, car-blinkers, signals, etc.

This brings me to one of my favorite apps that should be on every commuter’s iPhone or android smartphone, because I know you have them! 

@WAZE (www.waze.com). The FREE GPS Navigation App with Turn by Turn, but that’s not all it is.Waze connects you to the largest community of drivers on the road, where you can share real-time traffic information with other users around you. This app can help you and others avoid traffic and give you road-alerts so you can get where you need to go faster and possibly keep you from getting that dreaded traffic ticket! One of my favorite parts of Waze it that it learns your routes as you drive them more often, so when traffic is up ahead, or someone has submitted a road alert, Waze will automatically give you a better route to take if possible. I wouldn’t leave home without this app on my iPhone, it’s such a cool idea and helps out tremendously, I recommend!

I think a lot of us look at the commute as a monotonous yet necessary chore and sometimes even take it for granted, we should transform that notion. I typically like to find the silver lining in things that seem rather dull and tedious. Rather than sit in traffic enraged, I challenge you to find something fun to do while on the road, find a way to contribute to the social commuter’s community. Maybe find a fellow commuter who is stuck in the same traffic you are, then wave and smile at them, make their day. Use your commute to get in the right mindset before you arrive at work or school. Think of the commute almost like a buffer that provides you that border, separating home from work.

Socializing with Celebrity Connections

Today’s #TravelTuesday post comes from Jordan Schwartz, Social Business Associate at Actiance.

Our new best friend Miguel The Driver dropped us off front and center as event greeters hastily opened the doors of our black limo-esque Denali SUV and welcomed us onto the red carpet. Met by a barrage of camera flashes, the masses soon realized we were nobody of note and they turned their attention on to the next car. One quick picture with the Official CBS Photographer and my girlfriend, her sister and boyfriend, and their mom and I made our way down the lengths of paparazzi and E! Reporters.

Where was I?  Oh the Grammy’s (he said casually, like this happens every weekend..)

So how did I end up at the Grammy’s?  I guess I should really start with that.

My girlfriend’s mom happens to work for CBS and is “required” to go to both the #Grammys and the #Emmys every year, and this year I was lucky enough to get included in the invitation! Not that the whole red carpet/celebrity scene is my forte, but you’ve got to be excited about an invite like that. I pressed my new black suit and grey tie, and found myself back in Los Angeles where I spent 4 years at @UCLA

After being hurried along down the carpet as another face in the crowd, we found a few undisturbed seconds to take a couple pictures of our own at one of the classic Grammy signs. We made it through the down to Section 101, Row 2, Seats 1-5, and #instagram made its first appearance of my night as I snapped a picture of the stage and pushed it to twitter. One of my favorite parts of the night, we watched as the people of VIP-enough status to sit on the court floor filed in with their friends. Some of my favorite artists/stars of note were @TheBlackKeys, @TheLumineers, Fun. (@Ournameisfun), @Frank_Ocean, @Jtimberlake and @LenaDunham just to name a few.Naturally, celebrity hype and ‘fashion, fashion, fashion’ were central themes of night, but social media came in a close second. As you home viewers know from his opening speech, @LLCoolJ made sure to encourage everyone at home to tweet away with the hashtag “#Grammys” and mention him @LLCoolJ, noting that the Grammys in 2012 were the largest social media event to date and they hoped to break records again. What you didn’t see behind the scenes were the several other reminders to the live audience to post from the arena.

With such a large emphasis on social, I constantly checked twitter and posted (or tried to post) during my favorite performances trying to catch LL’s attention and be one of the random tweets read just after several commercial breaks throughout the night. My limiting factor was actually the data network in the arena. With everyone trying to tweet away, check in on foursquare, and post on their friends’ wall saying Justin Timberlake just walked by, it was hard to even get a post out.

Overall, seeing some of my favorite musicians sitting just rows away and braving the blinding flashes made for quite the night. Although I couldn’t do it every night (let’s say 20 performances was…stimulating), I would love to go back again for another 3-day music festival packed into one night.

Follow the exciting life of #TeamActiance on Twitter for the latest team adventures and experiences.

Avoid the Social Ghost Town: Five Tips

I’m presenting one of Actiance’s regular education webinars this morning, my topic is personal brand and how you can use social to build and maintain it.  I’m checking my slides, working through my commentary and I get to my section on establishing a brand presence.  The final bullet point on this slide is “No Ghost Town Here” and that makes me think that that’s actually one of the most important points about building a brand on social.

You’ve got to be consistent.  What point is there in building a community, building a brand and then letting it fall fallow, go to waste and have no content?  Building a brand is HARD WORK.  It takes a heck of a lot of time, commitment and often a lot of money.  Building a brand that is engaged and engaging is harder. And it takes serious commitment to maintain.  If you’re not serious about that, then I question that you’re serious about the rest of your life/business.

By the time you read this, I’ll no doubt have delivered my webinar (its 0900 pacific and you can register here, if you do perchance read this in time), but fear not dear reader, we’ll be recording the session, and as with all our educational webinars, we run them live at a minimum every two weeks, so you can listen to the dulcet tones of one of the Subject Matter Experts here at Actiance, and ask us questions live on air!

However, I’m taking this opportunity to share some tips on how to avoid your brand becoming the social ghost town:

1. Commit.  You can’t be half committed to social.  you’re either in, or you’re not.  So either commit the time, or don’t.  Be realistic about your commitment.  If you’re only going to share content once a month, then, really, Twitter probably isn’t the place for you.  Actually if you’re not going to engage with your friends, followers and connections, then consider if social is the right space for your brand at all.. if you want to lurk, you can do that anonymously.
2. Have a plan.  I know I should start this with strategy, but lets assume you have that.  Now get tactical and look at what you’re going to share, how you’re going to engage and with what.
3. Sort your content out.  Content is hard work.  So you need to look up to bullet point one, and then build content into that.  And this isn’t as hard as it first looks.  Every business has content.  Fair enough it might not be in 140 characters of less, but you’ve definitely get content, and face it with 140 characters, you’re cutting it down, not adding to it!
4. Associate your brand.  You know the values that you want your brand to have (whether your brand is a personal or a corporate brand), so associate it with like brands – re tweet, re purpose, share blogs, follow news feeds.   If you ask yourself the question “should I retweet this?”, then the answer is NO.  Associate your brand ONLY with those that will reflect well on you.
5. Crowdsource:  Work through my list.  If you associate your brand effectively you will find other good content.  Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and the thousand other networks out there let you collectively share content, so look for what’s popular, what resonates with your network and your aspirations and work that crowd (baby).
6. Darn it, I said five in the subject right?  ok this is the bonus point.  And to my mind its often forgotten and missed in our desire to see our Klout score go up and our Kred extend… LISTEN.  (sorry, don’t mean to shout.. but sometimes, over all the noise, on social listening, and THEN engaging is the most important thing we can do.

What did I miss?  What’s your tip for ensuring your brand doesn’t become a social ghost town?

PS:  My graphic today comes from Bodie State Park, California – a ghost town apart from the park rangers, and well worth the trip, its a superb state park with some great stories!

The Demise of the FSA and the Future of Financial Promotions

Although the Financial Services Bill is still going through the House of Lords, in less than nine months time the demise of the FSA will be complete. Its replacements, the PRA (Prudential Regulatory Authority) and the FCA (Financial Conduct Authority) have issued guidelines on their approach, but their current lack of detail on financial promotions has left many firms confused about the future.

The biggest initial change I think we are going to see is not new guidelines, but a stricter enforcement of the current ones with heavier fines for those that stretch the mark. One of the contentious issues around this is the proposed public “early warning” notices of firms that do not comply and the cutting of the right to reply from 28 to just 14 days.

The FCA guidelines state: The government intends that the FCA will have new powers in product intervention; to direct firms to withdraw or amend mis-leading financial promotions with immediate effect; and to publish the fact that a warning notice in relation to a disciplinary matter has been issued.

Besides the problem of drawing adverse attention to a potentially innocent firm, there are other issues to consider. Retrieving the evidence of a print or email-based marketing campaign to argue your case is relatively easy, but trying to collate proof around a social media campaign that’s taken place over several different platforms is time-consuming without an adequate contextual archive.

14 days is a long time if warning notices are issued and waiting that long to demonstrate publicly that it was within the regulation is not really an option for a firm looking at damage limitation and protecting its reputation. A successful, or indeed notorious, social media campaign that’s been running for just a week can produce a vast amount of content that will need to be reviewed. But working out who said what, who saw what, whether they were public messages or private DMs takes time if you’re doing it manually or using disparate databases. Not to mention the additional headache if the campaign actually ended months before.

In addition, the PRA outlines that it may even intervene in a financial institution’s business, citing the Japanese Financial Services Agency that in 2009 banned the retail division of a large financial institution from advertising and running sales campaigns for one month after it failed to maintain required standards to control money laundering.

We’ll have to wait until October when the House of Lords meets again to discuss the Financial Services Bill to see if the early warning notices will remain, but either way there are several things firms can do now in preparation for the final transition.

Review your risk within the current FSA guidelines, amended your policies and procedures if you find them lacking and starting thinking about using technology not just to enforce them, but to help you understand the situation and react quickly if something does go wrong. Even better, put a strategy in place that allows for real-time monitoring, compliant logging and archiving and content control that means that even if audited, you know you are safe when using Social Media as part of a marketing portfolio. The cost of implementing such an approach will always be significantly lower than the potential penalties for not doing so.

Getting it Right

Today’s post comes from Victor Gaxiola, Social Media Subject Matter Expert at Actiance.

I worked recently with a regional community bank and shared how to leverage  key demographic search criteria using  Facebook and LinkedIn advertising platforms. The purpose of the exercise was to illustrate how you can identify and narrowly focus on the audiences in your market area that are likely to use your product or service. What was originally a population of 161,000,000 users  on LinkedIn was narrowed down to 7,589,245 by focusing on metro area populations only.  On Facebook, we were able to narrow it from 3,692,700 users in a metro area to 158,660 and could further refine the search down to 16,580 users by including keyword terms.

Why did I do this? Well, I was looking at Social as part of the whole picture for the community bank- it would be very challenging if not impossible to do the same micro targeting using a newspaper or television ad. The revelation of the exercise was that smaller companies with limited budgets can compete with larger institutions by focusing on their key audiences and use social tools to add value and attract potential new customers.  By targeting their advertising to only those audiences that are likely to use their products or services, they avoid advertising to anyone that is outside of their market.  As more financial institutions embrace social media tools to micro target their key audiences, the easier it will be for them to address the unique needs of their customers and provide the level of service and attention they deserve, and expect.

The advantage that smaller community banks have over their larger and better funded counterparts is their ability to connect with their customers on a local level making a more immediate impact and difference in the lives of those in their communities.  Using a social channel provides these community businesses the opportunity to showcase how they are engrained in the community and give back to the citizens they serve.

One bank that is getting it right is Key Bank.  Based in Cleveland, Ohio, Key Bank  originally started its Facebook page as a way to talk about its community involvement. It has recently launched a second Facebook page focused on the bank’s program to support female entrepreneurs. They also have four Twitter handles, each serving a unique audience and specific purpose.   Their primary handle (@KeyBank_help) provides customer service support and assistance.  Another (@KeyBank_news) provides hard news and updates and another (@KeyBank_thrive) focuses on their community and philanthropic efforts.  The newest Twitter handle (@Key4Women) was launched to support female entrepreneurs and their Key4Women forums. A recent review of their online content on both platforms illustrated how  in tune they are with their customers. They also strike a fair balance mixing business related posts and community involvement communications.  By controlling their online messages and engaging with their fans and followers, Key Bank presents itself as professional, engaged and with a human face. In total, the bank has over 4000 fans on Facebook and nearly 2000 on Twitter, and we understand they are working on developing a YouTube channel for video content.

In addition to their social presence, they have also embraced fun and exciting social events to their content mix. To commemorate the bank’s Neighbors Make The Difference Day, employees of Key Bank, including their CEO Beth Mooney participated in a flash mob at the Tower City Center food court in Cleveland. That’s right, their CEO participated in a flash mob. How cool is that!??!  As a social media early adopter, it is refreshing to see senior level support in any social initiative.   Any business that is considering a social strategy is best served if their senior leadership is supportive,  and Beth Mooney is a great example of one that understands the power of the medium.  If you watch the video, you’ll note that Mooney is front and center leading the troops in an entertaining stomp-like rendition. It must have been a fun day. In short, Key Bank has found a way to leverage social media to add value, connect with customers, and provide numerous channels for feedback and engagement.

Although the larger, national banks are more likely to be in the headlines for their activities, it is in many cases the smaller community banks and credit unions that are finding ways to leverage their social media presence beyond a customer service or branding channel. Early adopters of social media enjoy the distinct advantage of having their voices amplified while others ponder how to participate.  The early lead in social will be short-lived, however the value of the relationships they develop in consumer preferred mediums will have a lasting effect in consumer loyalty and connectivity. Those that “get it” like Key Bank, will continue to reap the benefits of online presence and influence.

Socialite Demo at Finovate 2012 in San Francisco

Sarah Carter, General Manager of Social Business at Actiance presents a short demonstration of Socialite– the leading social media engagement platform that allows organizations to maximize the value of social media by empowering employees to share pre-approved content, interact with clients and prospects, and analyze the impact of published content.

To learn more, sign up for a free trial.

The Socialite demonstration was recorded at Finovate 2012 in San Francisco this spring.

Tweet ownership: Who owns what?

Twitter’s in the news again, this time with the court system involved.  Last week, a US court ordered Twitter to fork over the tweets of a guy that was arrested during an Occupy Wall Street protest in New York last October.  Why’s this a big deal?  Well, to date, Twitter has staunchly maintained that its users’ tweets belonged to the user, not Twitter, meaning that the tweets are protected free speech.  So, Judge Matthew Sciarrino’s ruling was noteworthy because it tosses that notion out the window.  Speaking of windows, Sciarrino said, “If you post a tweet, just like if you scream it out the window, there is no reasonable expectation of privacy.”  Ouch.  I can see the ACLU sharpening their knives now.

This is but one example of the many grey areas created by the social media phenomenon.  Another case is that of Eagle v. Edcomm.  This one is truly scary because it involves a lady’s own LinkedIn account.  Quick recap on the facts of this case:  Eagle was an Edcomm employee for quite some time but was eventually fired.  Edcomm changed the password to her account, effectively blocking access to her own account!  Edcomm claimed that Eagle developed, maintained, and expanded the LinkedIn account for Edcomm’s “sole benefit and use.”  Eagle got back control of her account and Edcomm then sued Eagle for “misappropriating” the account and the contacts within it after she got fired.  If you aren’t rolling your eyes in disbelief yet, you should be.

The above cases haven’t been decided yet, but already, the issues they raise have huge ramifications.  The collision of social media for personal use and for business use is becoming ever more inevitable.  Increasingly, many industries are witnessing the use of an individual’s social media accounts for both personal and work purposes, especially since sites like Facebook and LinkedIn allow individuals to have only one account.

Regardless of how the above two cases end up, the key takeaway from both is the importance of having a social media policy in place that CLEARLY states what is owned by the company and what is owned by the employee.  Try to be as specific as possible because these types of policies, along with employment agreements, tend to be upheld by the courts.

To toot our horn a lil bit, Actiance saw this coming some time ago.  We published a white paper at the beginning of the year that outlined some potential grey areas of litigation involving social media, and lo and behold, one of those grey areas we highlighted was ownership of LinkedIn profiles when used for business purposes.  Yup, sometimes we get lucky and other times we just “get it.”

We’ve got attorneys, social media marketing pros, and ex-regulators on our staff, so we understand the legal and regulatory issues around the use of social media in the workplace.  At the very least, we aim to educate and enlighten folks on the “best practice” use of social, so you don’t end up arguing your case in front of a jury.

How Social Media Can Improve Employee Relations

We collaborate and communicate with friends and colleagues using social media, but how many organizations think to use it a as a tool to provide vital non-confidential information to employees or to keep track of real-time events in areas where normal communication channels have been disrupted?

I was intrigued to see in our latest customer case study that as well as the expected uses of brand awareness and engaging clients and prospects in conversations, the UK branch of BNP Paribas Corporate & Investment Banking was also using social media to communicate with employees. One example given was relaying updates from the Metropolitan Police during the London riots last year. By providing information of fast moving events over Twitter, BNP Paribas helped employees avoid areas of unrest and stay safe whilst traveling to and from work.

We often talk about using social to build communities and normally we’re referring to interactions between businesses and their customers and partners. Widening that to encompass developing internal communities could have a positive impact in staff loyalty and productivity, both of which have a very tangible influence on an organization’s bottom line.

Wanting to gain a wide understanding of how different groups utilize social media, BNP Paribas involved several key areas of the organization during the trial of Socialite – from IT security and corporate communications, to business users on the trading floor. It was important that while content was controlled and moderated, the user experience was a positive one.

The case study also mentions how social media helped provide information on the status of oil fields during the recent Libyan conflict, demonstrating the power of social media as a real-time source of information, when traditional communication channels have been broken down.

As Compliance Officer – Technology Projects of BNP Paribas, John Ryan says, “Social media is fast-eclipsing other forms of communication for this, and upcoming generations. It’s important that banks keep pace with these changes. My advice to organizations wary of enabling social media in the workplace is that they ensure that the right internal policies and controls are put in place to minimize their risk.”

Building communities is a key part of a successful social media strategy, but it’s important to remember that not all social interactions have to be externally facing.

Somebody’s Watching Me

The last couple of weeks have seen UK newspapers filled with stories over UK Government plans to expand its monitoring activities to include email and social media. The two extreme ends of the point of view being it’s either the only way to stop criminal activity or one step away from a draconian privacy invasion something a kin to 1984.

Neither extreme is accurate. Obviously the more seriously criminally minded will start to use other methods of communication that are more secure, if indeed they are not already. In a humorous look of the proposed legislation comedian and presenter of the BBC’s Friday Night comedy, Sandi Toksvig recently conjured up the image of two terrorists in balaclavas talking to each other on Skype saying “Yes, I promise you it really is me under here.” However, with the right controls, it can play a significant role in the fight against crime.

At the same time, most people don’t have time to read their own email, let alone anyone else’s. If Government was planning on checking content, which incidentally it says it is not, then it would have to be using keyword or lexicon search.

Type “bomb site:twitter.com” into Google and it is easy to see that just the profile names of tweeters alone would keep someone busy for a long time let alone the messages, so it’s clear that some intelligence would need to be applied to make searching content worthwhile. It also highlights the challenges of scale, something that defeated the Labour government in its attempt to introduce similar legislation in 2009.

Perhaps one of the key issues is that of trust. With stories of local councils using RIPA (Regulatory Investigatory Powers Act) to accuse citizens of flouting the school catchment rules, it’s no wonder many people are wary of giving any government power to see who they call or chat to over the internet. If the TV programme Spooks is to be believed, the security services already have the technology anyway and are using it to listen in to every mundane conversation, text stream and email conversation anyway so what’s the difference? This of course is a long way from reality. However, the monitoring of suspicious traffic is a logical and more importantly, justifiable part of the crime-fighters armoury and with the massive strides being made in keyword and lexicon search and identification technology, also relatively easy to implement.

It is not the ability to listen-in to me telling the world what I am having for dinner on Facebook that is the issue, but how much control is in place to ensure we know who can listen to what.

The bottom line is that the growth of social and electronic media use by the criminal fraternity is a serious threat to our national security and well-being. Last summer’s riots grew at the pace they did because of the use of technology such as Blackberry Messaging, SMS and Twitter and monitoring will allow for the police and security organisations to react quickly and effectively to protect our safety. Terrorist communications have been proven to often be in the form of cleverly coded electronic communications.

“Ah”, I hear you say, “but what about human rights?”. Well, I think we have a decision to make – either we take the view that logically, there will be far too much traffic to allow for any investigator to focus on anything other than posts, tweets and blogs that trigger alarm bells OR we do nothing and run the risk of the criminal element enjoying unparalleled freedom of communication. The real issue is one of checks and balances to ensure responsible application of regulations around monitoring.

For this reason the UK Government, and indeed the others that are bound to follow suit, must ensure that the legislation protects society, whilst also protecting the rights of the individual.

When we look at most industry regulation today, that means implementing the technology to enforce a policy, archive it and provide a full audit trail to ensure that actions are accountable and that only authorised personnel have access. This technology is available today and its use needs to be factored into any policy discussion by government

Although we will have to wait until the full plan is revealed to truly analyse the consequences, I think it is inevitable that this type of legislation will eventually come into force.  We live in a world where real-time communications is the norm, it is unrealistic to expect those we look to protect us to do so without the tools to combat others that use them for nefarious activities.