I was at the Communications Summit in Brussels yesterday, listening to Soumitra in his keynote address about new technology and the impact on communications professional. The blog title is from one of his anecdotes about an executive who is observing his daughters use of Facebook. In short, the daughter explains to a dad who doesn’t ‘geddit’, “Daddy, I never want to work for someone like you”.
Soumitra’s keynote, “Throwing Sheep for Communications Directors: Understanding and Winning with Social Media” was rather good (and judging the response, relevant to this particular audience). That there is a generational divide between net-gen and the rest, is much commented on. Yet a similar gap exists between professions.
For 12 months I have been speaking to communication executives about online reputation management, social media etc. particularly for the tool that I am working on (Your Web Brand). There are enlightened PR professionals, working often within agencies but not only, participating and taking part in social media – but they (ie. we) are not the true innovators in this area. Often it is the young gen of marketers or web-focused twenty somethings that ‘geddit’ and apply the new technology well.
The “loss of control” that is being talked about today, is not just about vertical organisations losing authorship to citizen journalists. Comms professionals are also losing their influence to the new breed of web-enabled people who probably don’t even regard themselves and PR/comms specialists.
To underscore this point, yesterday’s workshop had Jon Worth talk about his campaign AtheistBus.org.uk. In the time it takes for a company director to book a ‘social media expert’ to come and speak to her/his Board, and for the board to agree, “Yes, this is important, let’s set up a task force”, someone like Jon has run an online/off-line campaign and is on to the next project. I exaggerate for effect, but not by much.
I hope the participants that leave today’s conference reflect on their own work practices when it comes to creating an environment in which young, creative talent wish to work in.
Filed under: Uncategorized, Corporate Comms, Social Media
