This video just totally challenged my way of thinking. It’s a little long, but please watch.
Illustration for the video was done by Cognitive Media, which looks to be an equally awesome organization.
Consider that my first marketing shill for my brand new employer–the Consumer Electronics Association!
It goes without saying (well, I’m saying it, really) that any and all entries, tweets, and other social media buzzing coming from me do not represent the views of my employer.
Now that that’s out of that way… I’m thrilled! Tomorrow I begin my marketing internship with the Consumer Electronics Association (thanks so much to @jp1113 for letting me know about the opportunity!). I’m not entirely sure what to expect, but I’m excited for the opportunity to work in a slightly different field (in other words, not PR) and I know my experiences in the past will help me out a lot as I take on new challenges and responsibilities.
As many of you know, I’ve already begun my duties as the Social Media Director for TechChange, and we’ll be launching our social media presence soon (and rest assured you’ll hear plenty about us). I think it’s safe to say it’s going to be a busy summer! But I’m excited about everything I’ve got going on and think I’ll have some opportunities to do some amazing work.
Speaking of work and interning, be sure you check out the AU Intern Blog, where I’ll be blogging periodically throughout the summer. I might also have a few other guest blogging appearances–I’ll let you know more about them as I find out more in the next few weeks!
It’s high time for this wake-up call. It is abundantly clear by the recent outrage at Facebook that the vast majority of the Internet–the social media crowd, in particular–still doesn’t get the business of social media. Social media is not a public service. It is not funded and managed by the government. It is not a nonprofit entity, out to change the world, regardless of the profit margin.
Social media is a business, and it amazes me how much social media users are, quite frankly, acting like entitled, spoiled brats.
Reality is striking the social media space and it’s hitting hard and fast. As we all know, it’s centered on the Facebook privacy debacle, set in motion by a changed privacy policy meant to help further the business–and the continued existence–of a growing international corporation. Couple that with some bad PR on Facebook’s part and a spoiled user base, and you’ve set the stage for a crisis of poisoned Tylenol proportions. But Facebook can relax, because they’re in the right on this one. People need to wake up and smell the roses, because there’s no such thing as a free lunch.
Three things I want you to learn from this post.
…incredible things can happen.
Image courtesy of NOAA, tsunami.gov
There’s no doubt that the earthquake in Chile today is a horrible, horrible tragedy. It’s yet another terrible reminder that we truly are at the mercy of nature–as if Haiti wasn’t proof enough. But as with Haiti, we’re witnessing an amazing case study of people coming together with technology to manage the impact of this natural disaster, and it’s truly fascinating to watch.
This morning I woke up at 6:30 a.m. and immediately read the news of the earthquake on Twitter, from my bed. I watched news coverage of the event on TV while I worked out in the gym in my apartment. I kept track of updates on the earthquake and resulting tsunami via Twitter throughout my make-up class session this morning.
When I went downtown this afternoon, I listened to NPR’s coverage of the event on my iPhone while I was biking, and then watched coverage of the impending tsunami in Hawaii via Ustream on my iPhone while at Chinatown Coffee. I continued listening to the audio from Ustream while I biked back–including in the metro thanks to relatively new wireles capability for all carriers they’ve installed in the largest metro stations in the city.
Within all of this coverage, of I heard references to Twitter, Twitpic, Posterous, Ustream, Facebook, CNN iReports, hashtags, texting, iPhones, and more.
The natural disasters, record snowstorms, unprecedented level of news coverage, and rapidly advancing online technology we’ve seen in the past three months alone prove–loud and clear–the world is changing, and fast. Social media is playing an integral role in this. I saw a tweet earlier today mentioning that Jack Dorsey, founder of Twitter, said one of the initial purposes driving Twitter’s development was for crisis response and management. The Haiti and Chile earthquakes prove that it’s been incredibly effective for it.
Again, this is obviously an absolutely tragic event. It’s an incredible case study for technology, but obviously one we all wish we could’ve avoided. I know my thoughts, as well as millions and millions of others’ thoughts, are with those in Chile–as well as those still recovering in Haiti–and we hope we can continue to drive the development of technology and advanced communications to ease recovery from disasters such as these.
First off, no this isn’t any of the posts I was planning on writing tonight. Unfortunately, it looks more and more like those will have to wait for the weekend (I’m so sorry SocialJusticeCampDC! I promise it’ll be a good one when it’s up). Today’s been a long and crazy day, but a very, very good one.
Work today was good. I won’t delve into that much more because before too long I’m going to be writing blog posts for the American University Career Center about my internship experience, which I’ll crosspost here. After work, I attended my very first ever Social Media Club DC event, and it was fantastic! The event was held at the Consumer Electronics Association headquarters in Arlington and featured two speakers from the CEA, Megan Pollock and Joe Gizzi, as well as Frank Gruber, entrepreneur and co-founder of TECHcocktail, shinyheart and thankfulfor, among others.
But enough links and name-dropping–what did they talk about? Well, fresh back from the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, they talked about tech of course! And, naturally, how it all fits in with social media. Joe Gizzi, especially, had some really interesting things to say about the CEA’s social media strategy to build buzz and deal with attendee complaints/suggestions at the conference. He talked about software they use (namely, CoTweet) as well as how they keep track of much of their dizzying analytics (mostly Google Analytics and CoTweet). For the next few days, you can see some of the livestream from the event here on Twitter. Needless to say, it was enlightening and fun, and I’m already looking forward to the next SMC-DC event (which just so happens to be a Social Media Breakfast next Monday morning!).
Anyway, one last thing I’ll leave you with–an entry from One Day At A Time In Al-Anon. No, I’m not crazy. I just picked it up for free at the Social Justice Camp last weekend (they were giving out free books–all in the name of literacy!) because it looked like a fun thing to have on my bookshelf. It provides some inspirational little passages for each and every day of the year, and today’s seemed particularly relevant given my hectic schedule as of late. Here it is:
No matter what the problems are that we’re trying to cope with, a major source of frustration is trying to encompass too much at once. We forget that we need to deal with only one day at a time, and try to crowd too much into the waking hours of that day–or we even extend it beyond the point of weariness. We can get more out of each hour–and accomplish more–if we try to cope with only as much as is possible in that one day.
Appropriate, no? Always learning.