Social Media

Who needs a widget? You do!

/ Angelo Fernando / Leave a comment

Let’s face it. The things that are supposed to make our lives easy continue to befuddle us: trackbacks, podzines, twebinar, RSS. The widget, however, is easier to like.

Yahoo! Typing speed widgetYahoo! has this really neat ‘Typing Speedometer‘ widget that you never knew you needed –until now! Wikipedia has a cool widget, many blogs are littered with widgets, and Facebook users hit on you with widgets until you want to reach for the pepper spray. One day you’re gonna bump into one so before someone gets hurt (I spotted two attack widgets) get to know how to use a few of them. You could always get the Dummies book on widgets, but here are some useful places to start:

IABC Phoenix – Social Media Presentation

/ Angelo Fernando / 1 Comment

blogtitle.jpgIf you attended the Writers’ Group workshop on social media and blogging, here is the presentation. Thank you to the IABC, and Suzanne McCormick, for inviting me to speak.

I realize we sped through a lot of material, so please feel to contact me if you have any follow up questions.

Incidentally, if you are interested, my colleague Dan Wool spoke about the same topic on Wednesday at the PRSA luncheon. Dan has a wonderful perspective of social media. If you haven’t already, do subscribe to the RSS feed of ValleyPRBlog.

Are communicators behind the curve?

/ Angelo Fernando / Leave a comment

Shel Holtz had an interesting analysis on why professional communicators are lagging.

Communicators, as a profession, are woefully behind the curve when it comes to participatory communication, and I’ve come to the conclusion that there is one overarching reason for this: Communicators don’t like or understand channels over which they cannot exercise complete control.

Holtz’ long post (about the role of professional associations) makes a solid point that too many folks wearing a ‘communicator’ hat “are woefully behind the curve” with regard to new media channels, a.k.a. participatory media, a.k.a. social media.

I have no problem with people being behind the curve –who isn’t, considering how fast the curve is rising? — but it gets scary when people seem disinterested in where the curve is taking us and our organizations. I often hear the “we’re getting there slowly” response. Which is code for “We aren’t really sure if this will be relevant.” Not the same as diving in, and taking baby steps, which I often advocate.

To put things in perspective, Commmunicators aren’t the only ones behind the curve.

The trick is to not be so deliriously happy staying in the laggard position, and do nothing about it.