Where are We?

by Roger Pynn

If you’ve ever gotten confused trying to remember which of your social network was the place you first saw or “heard” something, a white paper by Forrester’s Jeremiah Owyang predicts they will eventually be much more like one single network … that networks will follow users more than users will follow them.

Think of it like the ability to port your personal phone number from one wireless carrier to the other. You’ll have a single identity for which you are known in numerous online communities and you’ll participate in even more conversations. To those who sometimes feel overwhelmed by all this networking, hang on for the ride.

And to those who are already beginning to worry about the commercialization of these communities, hang on even tighter.

As Randall Beard wrote on MediaPost:

“future social web will make ‘portable’ the opinions, insights and knowledge of friends — which all research shows is much more trusted than any other information source–as consumers travel the Web and interact with brands, products and services.”

Although Beard also suggests that Owyang’s view of the future will include the ability to expose or hide personal information as you travel from network to network, there’s little doubt that consumer relationship management executives will demand greater technological support for tracking and monitoring consumer habits.

Where you go and what you say have never been so open to interpretation. And as if this weren’t enough, check out AT&T’s “familymap” product designed to “let you know where your kids are at any time.” For $9.99 a month you can locate up to two phones in your family plan with a gps tracking system.

Can’t you just see it now? The wife goes shopping and her husband calls to say “that store’s too darned expensive. Move on to something more moderate.” To which she will reply, “as soon as you leave that sports bar I’ll be glad to shop somewhere else.”

Solitary Confinement

by Dan Ward

Sunday morning rolled around, and my wife and I began preparations for a family trip to the beach. But 59-year-old Tom Watson was still in the lead going in to the final 18 at The Open Championship. What’s a sports fanatic with family obligations to do?

Simple, I thought. Set the DVR and worry about ol’ Tom later.

But then I realized times have changed from the days when I could tape a ball game and avoid learning the score in advance by simply warning my friends not to call. This time, I needed a plan.

- Avoid any news programming on the car radio … check.
- Keep eyes squarely on the road to avoid the interstate billboards broadcasting the latest news … check.
- Make sure the TV is set for the remainder of the day to The Food Network, apparently the last network left that doesn’t provide a news “crawl” … check.
- Don’t answer the phone, even if it’s my mother … check.
- Don’t log on to Facebook, where a “yay, Tom” or “sorry, Tom” message might be squeezed between the Mafia Wars posts … check.
- Keep the twittering with the birds, where it belongs … check.

My plan worked, and I watched Tom get destroyed by the vengeful golf gods around 11 p.m. But it certainly wasn’t easy.

We’ve chosen to inundate ourselves with information; always searching for the quickest way to know what everyone in our lives (or in the news) is doing right this very instant. But sometimes I think this quest for immediate knowledge has made tools like the DVR irrelevant. The DVR was supposed to let me watch my favorite programs, sporting events or the news at a time of my choosing, but the only way to actually make that happen is to separate myself completely from every form of communication.

Sometimes, any information is simply too much.

PR & The Tooth Fairy

by Roger Pynn

Overheard a fellow practitioner last night talking about a “pr solution” to a corporate crisis he’s anticipating. I told him to put a tooth under his pillow. He didn’t get it.

There’s no such thing as a public relations solution. Only management action will resolve a crisis.

Unfortunately, too many people in our business reinforce the Nixonian concept that you can “pr people.” It didn’t work for the Watergate scandal and it won’t work for a corporate crisis. Public relations isn’t a verb. In fact, public relations is an aging misnomer for the practice of strategic management communications counsel. It isn’t about what we say for our companies or clients. It is about what we urge and convince them to do.

Twitter: It’s Not about Relationships Anymore?

by Kim Taylor

When I joined Twitter more than a year ago, I was skeptical. Why would I want to tell everyone “What I was doing,” or better yet, why would I care what they were doing?

After slowly getting the hang of it, I realized it was a great way to build relationships … relationships with people you may not have had access to before. Even if those “relationships” came in the form of 140-character tweets, you still felt like you had some connection.

It’s not about numbers for me, I have a mere 636 followers—a small number relative to the millions some celebrities have acquired. Even smaller is the number of folks I follow. But within those 500+ people is a select group of twitterers whose every tweet I look forward to.

What I’m not looking forward to is for those people – who I’ve come to respect – to begin making money off of their following (me), with a new form of ‘sponsored tweeting’ by local Internet Marketing firm, IZEA.

Don’t get me wrong, I think IZEA’s paid blogging format has created tremendous opportunity for bloggers and companies alike. So, if it works for traditional blogs, why can’t it work for microblogs? Because I don’t read blogs to build relationships … that’s what Twitter’s for.

Follow me @klt_CandP, where my tweets won’t be sponsored by anyone but me.