To Tweet Or Not To Tweet (BP)

It has been nearly a year since the explosion on the Deepwater Horizon rig, an epic disaster that exposed BP BP to government censure, litigation, and costs that would rise to billions.

Of course, when your company is responsible for spilling millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, these are repercussions that you take on the chin. What BP was perhaps less prepared to deal with was the actions of a Houston engineer named Justin Grindal, a subcontractor working from the intervention vessel Q4000, who took it upon himself to live blog on Twitter about BP's preparations for the cleanup.

Social networking is now very much a part of everyday life, and Grindal's actions should provide a wake up call to companies in all industries. Grindal wasn't simply sitting in front of a computer; he was on a boat surrounded by water. It's old news that subscribers to social networking sites can update their profiles and tweet from their cell phones, but the fact that this technology was used to report the progress of a major incident by a subcontractor seems to have come as a huge surprise to BP. Others might say that the only surprise is that more people weren't doing it.

“This is a true worst-case, and the industry will be paying for it for years,” tweeted Grindal, aka @ jgrindal, on the morning of May 26. “Flowrate is the major variable right now. This is what is giving engr's headaches.”

Later, Grindel tweeted that he had been told in no uncertain terms to back off. “Wow, just got a scathing call from mgmt, requesting I tone down my twitter info,” read the tweet.

Grindel, who is in his late twenties, told CNBC that he is adamant he didn't do anything that breached the non-disclosure agreement he signed as part of his work for BP.

If he didn't, in these days of rapidly evolving technologies, perhaps the non-disclosure agreement warrants a rewrite.