Why Bother?

Wow, thanks BL, reporting things like this is really valuable. I spend so much time with my head buried in social software I forget that the whole world doesn't get it :-)

Mind you it also illustrates that no matter what "world" you live in there is another "world" that doesn't understand it. Like I don't understand people that buy stuff off infomercials, but clearly plenty of other people do.

Cheers,

karl

"sure bloggers point out an issue, but there's no real impact until it hits mainstream media."

What a statement.

When will 'they' realize that blogs (and the like) are becoming mainstream media?!

Hi, BL. I'm one of the PRSA participants from Tuesday's session, and I do (on most days) call myself a communications professional. Specifically, I am a small agency flak working with clients who are still interested in getting articles in small town weekly newspapers and/or have workforces not connected electronically, due to the nature of their industries.

My point is, I haven't had a lot of opportunity to implement blogging, RSS feeds, wikis, etc. into my client work. While I have read about these things and have experimented with blogging, I by no means feel like an expert. That is the reason I paid about $1500 to go to NY for the conference.

Reason for my visit today is to thank you for taking the time to serve on the panel and for sharing your expertise. It sounds as though one corporate PR person and her question kinda ruined it for you and made the entire room of people look like idiots... for that I am sorry. What a shame.

Dana: Quite honestly, if you want to learn about social media, PRSA isn't the place to spend your $1500. There are an abundance of conferences about social media and they offer a better range of information than PRSA has ever been willing to provide. All they wanted to do was include the obligatory "this is what a blog is" panel, with not enough time for any real depth.

Whether or not your clients are doing business online, their customers and their competitors already are. It falls to you to educate them on the possibilities.

I don't know what fields you work in, but I guarantee you that there is a way that social media impacts on every one of them.

And yes, that woman and her insipid comment was pretty lame. The other comment that ruined it for me was the one from one of the panelists whom I quoted in this post. Sheesh!
BL