The explosion of social media networks–a loosely defined area of converging media and technology that encompasses everything from Facebook and MySpace to Twitter and text messaging–has created enormous opportunity as well as emerging risk for the business professionals who create, manage and use them.

"The social media sites have interesting liability related to them because many of them are open forums and to the extent that people are posting things that create liability, who is liable, the individual or the enabler?" notes Paul Romano, President of OneBeacon Professional Insurance. "The idea of liability relating to those who publish or those who facilitate is fascinating. That's going to be an interesting area of law to watch over the next decade."

In fact, watching over the social media arena is key part of Laurie Sablak's job at OneBeacon. Perhaps surprisingly, social media directly relate to her management of OneBeacon's employment practices liability insurance (EPLI) product.