General Motors

Narcissus by kazukichi, Flickr

I haven’t posted in quite a while; which is always a sign that lots is going on of the kind that offsets future tuition obligations, which for the next few years of my life is a good thing.

So what awoke me from my social publishing slumber?  As is often the case, it was a visceral reaction to a seemingly small thing… in this case a tweet from a friend and industry colleague — but the content of which furrowed my brow.

This friend is a great writer, speaker, affable fellow, and has been a great advisor to me personally as I gave up suckling at the corporate teet about two years ago.  He has a big following.  When he speaks or blogs or tweets, lots of people listen, read or retweet.  He’s a new media guru.

He has been a thought leader as fellow marketing functionaries sought to understand how new communication tools (blogs, in particular) and the power of web search engines turned the traditional media context upside down.

He uses his first-mover advantage to spread what was once riot-inciting marketing rhetoric, and is now common sense about social media, social networks, social publishing:

• Listen ten times more than you speak
• Give ten times more than you expect to receive
• It’s all about the virus: try to create ideas that will spread to squillions over the web

He uses his platform to challenge brands to wake up to the ways of this new world, and always acknowledges them when they respond.

He blogged recently about what one of the very large manufacturing entities bailed out by the government could do to fix its marketing.  Excellent suggestions and, as usual, steeped in the perspective of the new media.

The next day, he went out on Twitter, essentially saying:

“Knock Knock. Hello? Hey  is anyone home? Care to comment on my post??  It’s been 24 hours..”

I dashed off a reply (via Facebook, where I first saw the tweet), which said:

“Yo: Those guys have  just been told to take orders from a 31-year old who’s never held a job with products or revenue on the line in his life. Perhaps they’ll get back to the social media moguls a little later on. ”

It was meant in light seriousness… but it got me thinking.  The new media are so powerful.  And yet the temptations are so great.  Here was a case where a good guy and a bright industry light used his platform to essentially say, “Hey — I’m talking over here.  Are you listening to me?”  To me, it read like a violation of the Gospel according to the New Media Gurus.  Off to confession!

Thankfully, about an hour or so later he tweeted again:

“OK, this company has more important things than my blog to do this week.”

I was relieved.  But there’s a lesson here: with barriers to communication to vast audiences so low, people need to keep in mind that social media aren’t always at the center of everyone’s universe.

We are stewards of our online persona(e) — a very very big responsibility indeed.

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