CEOs recently got a lesson in managing workers’ use of social media from a Forrester tech analyst.

Nigel Fenwick, principal analyst at Forrester Research, ended his session on social media for the CIO at last week’s Forrester IT Forum with that audience-waking quote from Forrester CEO George Colony: “Social [media] is like sex — fun to read about, fun to look at, but to really understand it, you have to do it.”

Fenwick’s point: If you’re going to manage people or sell to folks who use social networking for either personal or business purposes, you’d better know how the technology works and what makes it attractive to growing numbers of people.

Seems that Fenwick understands that many CIOs and CEOs have little use for or contact with the wide variety of social networks out there.

Beyond forbidding their use at work on company-issued equipment, many tech chiefs have little connection to this powerful new online force.

But workers do. And so do customers and clients. The failure to have an active and nimble social networking policy and strategy could leave many businesses so far out of the loop that their smaller, more tech-savvy competitors will steal the show.

The time for leadership to figure out these policies and strategies is now.