If you happen to be in the consumer product business, especially children's products, your world was rocked a few years ago when Mommy Bloggers—at first with almost no following—mounted a massive social media campaign accusing Procter & Gamble Pampers of causing serious chemical burns to children. It was a trenchant example of how the Internet has redefined risk—both current and future—for this industry.

If you happen to be in the energy business, an even louder thunderclap sounded when Colorado activists used their digital wherewithal to pass moratoria or outright bans on fracking. They used Twitter to promote anti-fracking documentaries, Facebook to target their messages, and YouTube to disseminate compelling visuals, not to mention search engine optimization (SEO) to control the story. Again, risk was redefined such that effective “enterprise risk management” (ERM) can no longer rely on traditional public affairs strategies to win the day in the Court of Public Opinion.

You can't even sell melons without redefining risk. When a salmonella outbreak was traced to a cantaloupe farm, plaintiffs' lawyers immediately bought up all the key search firms to dominate the litigation-related narrative.