City journalists are wont to expend an indecent amount of hagiographic flannel on billionaire ‘entrepreneurs’ whose broader impact on society ought to merit at least a degree of ambivalence. We won’t engage the libel lawyer by naming names.

This is surely not the case, however, with Steve Jobs, a genuine visionary whose resignation as chief executive of Apple has generated a flood of gushing profiles. The Financial Times, to take one example, can surely offer no greater tribute than to describe a living capitalist as ‘arguably the greatest business leader of the postwar era’. He rightly stands comparison with the likes of Thomas Edison and Henry Ford.

It is Jobs above all who is responsible for what the first of a regular Gazettelegal technology column describes as a ‘sea change’ in the workplace. In law firms, as in other enterprises, technology is being ‘consumerised’; people are bringing the ‘kit’ they use in their private lives into the office.

This is having a profound impact on firms’ IT strategies and creating a headache for chief information officers everywhere. To what extent should this phenomenon be encouraged and supported by firms?

Yes, it can save money and boost user engagement, partly through the smart exploitation of social networking. But how can it be reconciled with the overarching requirement to maintain tight security?

If your firm has yet to address these questions, perhaps it’s time it did.