Phil LaDuke to Speak at the National Safety Council Texas Safety Conference and Expo

HOLLY, Mich. - March 27, 2015 - PRLog -- March 27, 2015 - Austin -- (Holland, MI)  ERM Partner Phil La Duke will speak at the 2014 National Safety Council Congress & Expo this year in Austin, Texas.

La Duke is slated to speak on Tuesday, March 31, from 8:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. The session, will explore ways safety professionals can leverage social networking to improve their effectiveness.
We sat down with Phil and asked him a couple of questions:

1.     Why should organizations care about social networking?

LaDuke:      “Social networking gets more powerful every day and organizations are finding ways to leverage this ubiquitous phenomenon far beyond marketing.  For example, companies are challenging Workers’ Compensation claims based on Facebook posts and using Twitter to communicate critical safety and security issues related to evacuation.  Every day someone finds a new way to use social networking in some innovative way.”

2.     Doesn’t this create an Orwellian “Big Brother Is Watching You” atmosphere?

LaDuke:      “I think that initially that may have been a concern, but when people are posting the most intimate details of their lives on a public forum, and these details can go viral it’s tough to cry foul that your privacy has been violated.  When YouTube videos can get millions of hits in mere hours I think one forfeits any expectation of privacy.”

3.     Do you see social networking as primarily a tool for fraud protection and discipline?

LaDuke:      “Not at all.  First of all, research has shown that the vast majority of Worker Compensation claims are legitimate and the percentage of fraudulent claims is tiny in comparison.  Unfortunately, that small number of fraudulent claims represents a disproportionate percentage of Workers’ Compensation costs.  Beyond monitoring social media for fraud, social networks are amazingly effective at quickly getting a message out to a large group of people. I don’t think people fully realized that until they saw the effectiveness of the ‘Arab Spring’ movement and the role social media played in mobilizing people.  We can use this in organizations as a whole and specifically we can use it in safety. ”

4.     What dangers do you see in the use of social networking for business purposes?

LaDuke:      “Much like anything, the biggest danger is doing something poorly.  ‘Experts’ have been telling us that every business needs a Facebook page, a blog, and should be sending out x number of Tweets a day. Companies have responded by offloading the responsibility to a marketing intern with no strategy, no direction, and no end game.  The result has been companies using enticements ( ‘get a free pizza for liking Bob’s Remodeling)  to get ‘likes’ or ‘shares” which muddles branding and market intelligence.  Frankly I don’t see the use of one social medium in a vacuum as all that effective. Companies have to combine these media tools to drive traffic to the right places and have a plan for what they want to accomplish once the people arrive at those places.”

About Phil La Duke:
Phil La Duke is an internationally recognized business author who has written extensively on the topic of social networking most notably for Entrepreneur and Fabricating & Metalworking magazines and for MonsterTHINKING.
He also authors a weekly blog (http://www.philladuke.wordpress.com/); guest blogs for Safetyrisk (http://www.safetyrisk.net/), MonsterWORKING, MonsterTHINKING and ISHN; and writes a monthly safety column for Fabricating and Metalworking. Follow Phil La Duke on Twitter @ Philladuke or @ workersafetynet.