A Saturday Night in the Dark

Yesterday was a rainy day in Houston. A very rainy day. We began the day nearly 5 inches behind in annual rainfall and ended it a couple of inches ahead. There were floods all over town, and power went out for over 28,000 across the City.

We were among the lucky few without power for nearly 12 hours. With rain falling, roads flooded and nothing much else to do, my husband Jeff, daughter Stacey (our boomerang boarder) and I napped, BBQed dinner, listened to a battery-powered IPOD and played flashlight games on the ceiling until bed time. We enjoyed a too rare family time.

It's amazing how much fun you can have doing nothing. Sometimes, it's just nice to remember that we don't need TV, movies or even microwaves to enjoy being together. With candles flickering, we just laughed, told funny stories and relaxed.

Of course when the sun was out and the power was back on this morning, and we could make coffee, that was really nice, too.

Social Media of the Cavemen

With business a bit slow, I'm actually taking time to really dig in to LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and other social media - as if you couldn't tell. I responded to a question posted on LinkedIn and thought I'd share my response here.

There is evidence that cavemen went to clan gatherings to meet, worship and compete. The ancient Romans and Greeks went to the market to buy things, exchange information and to socialize. These gatherings and markets were, for those civilizations, "social media."

Social media as we know it today - Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, etc. - are the virtual gathering places for today's global population. Our communities are no longer bounded by geography. We can visit family, converse with like-minded people, debate issues or do business where ever and whenever we want.

You can hear people describe the ice cream cone they just enjoyed; offer critiques of recent news; or share a real time event via Twitter. There are few rules of order in this new media other than keeping it real, authentic and simple.

The social media landscape is evolving and changing by the minute. The only thing we can do to keep up is to stay engaged. Constantly test the various channels to determine the right one for each of us personally and for business.

For me, it's Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

Social Media - An Embraceable Tool for Gray-Haired Communicators

Lately, I've listened to many of my communications colleagues debating whether or not they should jump on the social media bandwagon. The attitude I hear most is "I'm doing just fine without Twitter or Facebook. Why take on yet another thing to do?"

Well, we embrace social media because we're communicators. It's our job, our mission, to communicate for our companies, our clients, ourselves on all possible channels.

When I began my career as a professional communicator in the early '70s, face-to-face, print and broadcast were our options. Then came the fax and we annoyed people with blast faxes. We used newsletters, magazines, brochures, press releases, interviews and events to get the word out.

Then in the mid to late 80's, our world began to change, in a big way. With the introduction of PCs, came email, primarily inter-company. Still, we had an almost immediate channel on which we could distribute information to a broad audience with one click. In the mid 90s our world fully exploded with options available on the Internet.

Did we ignore any of these channels. You bet we didn't. We exploited every traditional tool available to communicate our messages and stories, and we learned ways to exploit the Web.

Surprisingly, it's not the kids that are driving this social media revolution, its experienced professional. According to a recent blog by Reuters Alexei Oreskovic, it's a much grayer demographic:

"Twitter devotees are grayer than one might expect: The majority of Twitter’s roughly 10 million unique Web site visitors worldwide in February were 35 years old or older, according to comScore.

In the U.S, 10 percent of Twitter users were between 55 and 64, nearly the same amount of users as those between 18 and 24, which accounted for 10.6 percent of the total."

When I hear my colleagues, especially the folks who are my age contemporaries (and I'm smack in middle of that 55 - 64 age range) saying they're just not interested in social media; I have to ask, "Why aren't you engaging?"

You don't have to tackle every social media platform at one time. But it is essential to determine which ones make sense for promoting you and/or your business or clients. Dr. Fern Kazlow offers suggestions for setting up a power grid to help use the right social media channels for business and promotion.

I jumped in with both feet, and while I admit that it's not always easy for me to keep up with Facebook, LinkedIn , my blog, YouTube, Flickr and Twitter, the fact is that I'm there. These are important channels today and if we are going to call ourselves communicators then we must tune in to all channels.

Newspaper missed the tipping point

A couple weeks back the Houston Chronicle joined the list of great papers downsizing - in a big way. Over 200 reporters and staff are gone. Who's left to really write? Not many.

As the Internet and social media changed the way we receive and process news, it seems the daily newspapers missed the change. Via Twitter we often learn what's happening before the media picks it up. My day starts online with the Wall Street Journal or The Economist. My husband begins with CNN.

I get my dose of local news 10 p.m., primarily watching for the weather. But even that is available at Weather.com or online. I don't get from these channels is in depth, investigative reports. That type of real news is becoming lost, unless you dig yourself.

This is, perhaps, where local papers missed their chance. Instead of fighting to compete with the real-time media channels, they could have become our "real story" choice. Not reality news, but in depth reports on issues that matter to people.

While millions of us are online, there are still millions of grandparents who are not. My Mother, at 83, feels left behind because she can't access the increasing flow of online information. Actually, she really doesn't want to, because it's totally beyond her comprehension.

She's not alone. The Greatest Generation is still around in large numbers and, while many of them have embraced the technology, just as many have not. They're still reading magazines and their daily paper.

Maybe it's not daily, maybe it's three times a week. I just hope that it's not too late for newspapers to retool. If they slip away, not only will we lose a valuable part of our history, I will miss enjoying a leisurely Sunday with a cup of coffee and my paper.

Wrote 4 client position statements, answered emails-FB-Tweets-LinkedIn. Sun's out, time to hit the garden.

There is nothing like spending a couple hours grandkids and grown kids to remind you that life isn't work.

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