PR Niblets

Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Social 'Notworks'

First weekend back since my trip to Stuttgart, Germany and a meeting of our international PR partnership organization, ECP Global (www.ecpglobal.com). We met prospective partners from Sweden, The Netherlands and Spain. Interesting side trips to the Mercedes Benz Center of Excellence... medieval towns and gourmet meals.
While digging out from my workload, I was seeking inspiration for what to write about in PR Niblets. Make it serious and write about the challenges of growing our firm during a recession? Detail my foreign travels? Comment on alarming uptick in swine flu cases? How 'bout that Obama?
Inspiration arrived in an e-mail from my former colleague Christine Milligan Mulvehill, now living up in Beantown and working for Mullen PR. It appears that my upcoming birthday -- as revealed to 'insiders' by Plaxo Plus -- was the subject of a blog by Peppercom founder Steve Cody (http://www.repmanblog.com/repman/2009/04/useless.html#comment-captcha).

Steve writes about some of the useless information he is subjected to from Plaxo -- the poster child being my birthday announcement. He has a point. Social networking sites can be totally frivolous or an amazing networking, social or research tool. I'm amazed at how often some of my friends and colleagues "tweet" each day. There are days I have to scramble to find time to hit the bathroom... but there they are... several times an hour.. pointing out some interesting factoid about a disease... a celebrity ... or where they're going to lunch... what they ate... what was discussed... and how much they enjoyed lunch earlier.
Whether you LinkIn, Tweet, catch up with your peeps on MySpace or FaceBook or have Plaxo manage your address book, the 'social notworks' are all the rage. For me, I just want to find out Steve Cody's birthday so I can return the favor.

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