A conversation about how technology allows leaders to “govern beyond the desktop” generated optimism and laughter as well as fear and skepticism Tuesday at the annual Federal Senior Management Conference in Cambridge, Maryland.

“People are dating online. Meeting people all over the world,” said Anthony Macri, who serves on the General Services Administration’s mobility transformation team. “You have to shift to a virtual mentality and the technology supports that. It’s a mindset of virtual connectivity.”

Chris Dorobek, who led the discussion, responded: “Who’s doing that? Dating online?”

“I’m doing that,” Macri quipped, initiating chuckles from the audience.

Despite the light-hearted mood, those who attended the panel discussion that centered around social media and mobility among federal agencies iterated genuine fear that telework would become mandatory or that leaders were expecting mobile devices to replace face-to-face meetings.

But the panelists agreed the technologies help leaders do their jobs better and enable citizens to help them in their goals.

“I’m not a tech person and I’m using these things. I’m looking for tools to help me do my job better,” said Beth Beck, . “I used to stand at a booth and tell people about what NASA does. Now I have people all over the world talking about us and who are interested in what we’re doing. We’re just supplementing what we are still doing as humans.”

Panelists also agreed that what prevents federal agencies from reaping more benefit from mobile technology is managing by activity rather than outcome. A mobile workforce demands attention to performance and a cultural transformation, they said. They assured the audience that the effort and risk, however, is all worth it.

“We talk a lot about innovation but we don’t want to talk about risk,” Macri said. “If you are just managing at a site, you are not managing. How do you know employes are productive? How do you know it now? It’s no different. If we (GSA) can do it and model this it will give other agencies the courage to do it. … It’s a paradigm shift and fear is part of it. I think the impression is that there’s more risk than there is.”

Finally, panelists also encouraged government leaders to form solid business cases that impact the public.

“You need to tie the use case back to public value,” said Dante Ricci, director of SAP Federal Innovation. “We’ve just scratched the surface.”