We conduct a variety of research and roundtable forums every year and, in one of our most recent ones, a senior information security person provided the following perspective on the evolution of electronic communications:

Today’s younger generation uses email, IM, and text messaging as follows:

1.  You email your grandparents
2.  You IM your parents
3.  You text your friends

So unstructured communication will become even more unstructured as the next generation of workers populates the workplace AND company networks will not be the place where all communication occurs, is logged, and can be retained. 

Another participant pointed out that workers joining their companies in the future (and today) will already have a mobile phone and laptop and that they are putting the pieces in place to support personal devices (phones and PCs) vs. incurring the cost of supplying and supporting them.  Puts network security and management in a whole different light to manage non-standard/unknown devices hitting the network, accessing data, and communicating with each other.