Reminiscing

I’ve been doing some pre-spring cleaning around the house – mostly going through boxes of childhood treasures/junk. I stumbled across a gem yesterday: an auto response to a message I sent to President Clinton in April 1995.

Oh, those heady days of the internet in the mid-90s. I was ten years old in April ’95 and we’d only had the internet for a few weeks. Dialing in on my 14.4 modem and “surfing the information superhighway” was a fascinating, absorbing experience for a precocious pre-teen; my surfing time was limited (what if someone was trying to call us?!) but I certainly made good use of the time. I would use IRC to chat with strangers (emphasis on ‘strange’) from all over the world in chat rooms (do those still exist?), browse newsgroups for video game cheats, and look up obscure Simpsons quotes.

Unfortunately, the response from the White House didn’t include my original message. Knowing myself back then, my email probably said something to the effect of, “Bill Clinton and the US suck! Canada rules!” Nevertheless, when my parents saw the autoreply from the White House, they were afraid the FBI would be knocking on our door to investigate a potential security threat.

My ten-year-old self could have never imagined that almost twenty years later, we’d all be carrying powerful computers in the palms of our hands and accessing the internet at lightning speeds (compared to dialup) from anywhere in the country. But I kinda miss being one of the few people who “had the internet” and understood how it worked. Back when being a geek wasn’t cool and pirating music took 40 minutes per song.

Sigh.

Oscars shmoscars.

I write this as one of the biggest entertainment events of the year unfolds on television: the Academy Awards, aka #oscars, aka #oscars2013, aka #toomuchsinging.

I typically avoid such evenings of needless hype and inflated egos, but my sister is visiting and wanted to watch, so I relinquished the tv remote to her. Yet we’ve sat in the living room all evening and have barely looked at the TV screen – instead, we’ve been glued to social media to read snarky comments and insider news.

Tomorrow we’ll hear all about how XXX million many people “watched” the Oscars – but how many were actually looking at their TV screens for the majority of time? These days, boring speeches and lame comedy routines can’t keep our attention. Social media is a necessary supplement to awards shows, which have become virtually unwatchable without the constant distraction of Twitter feeds or Facebook updates.

I’m curious to read what the most creative trending hashtags were – #AnneHathawaysnipples? #LifeofPisucks? #SethMacFarlanetanked?

But this post was mostly just an excuse to share a photo of how bored Gigi was with the Oscars: http://instagram.com/p/WImC9HxEBc/.

The power of LinkedIn

I seem to be failing hard as a blogger – it’s been several weeks since I last posted. Hope my many dedicated readers can forgive me.

LinkedIn has come a long way in the past year. It wasn’t ago that it was used as an online Rolodex – you’d meet someone at an event and instead of simply exchanging business cards, you’d add each other on LinkedIn. For many, it was also a great way to keep tabs on former classmates and colleagues: where is she working now? How did he get that job? Freelancer? Looks like someone’s unemployed *snicker*. Not that I’ve ever used LinkedIn for such purposes…

But now it’s so much more than that. It’s now a great source for employment news and commentary from opinion leaders, a helpful job search tool, and a community for like-minded professionals to network and engage. While these groups are a goldmine for organizations looking to communicate with clients and become established as “thought leaders”, creating and managing a successful group is not as simple as starting a group and expecting your customers will join and participate.

As LinkedIn users tend to be  focused on furthering professional goals and rather than just killing time (a la Facebook), spurring a conversation isn’t as easy as posting the latest meme and hoping for likes and comments. Social Media Examiner suggests that all groups need a leader – a spokesperson who is the face of the group and contributes to the conversation as a very active member. Members and posts should be screened to avoid marketing spammers, and a group policy must be enforced to keep conversations relevant and on track. A group left unmonitored will quickly devolve into a content marketing blackhole, with each post attempting to drive traffic to products and blogs.

LinkedIn now gives companies the ability to create a “Company Page” — essentially, a business profile which users can follow to learn about company products and job opportunities. It’s also a great forum to highlight your strengths and successes – links to useful blog posts, articles, or news releases can help educate your followers about your business. Some useful tips via Forbes.com for setting up your Company Page can be found here.

While my company’s page has attracted a fair number of followers with very little effort on my part, engaging with these followers via page updates and groups has proven to be difficult. It could just be my audience (lawyers), but I’m not entirely convinced. I’ll definitely be working on improving my company’s presence on LinkedIn in 2013, as the platform continues to flourish.