Twitter hits home. Or, "Honey, what's that intern doing in our kitchen?"
12/5/2010 5:59:55 PM by Mark Gale
Despite the industry I'm in, people still seem to question me about the value of Twitter. They understand that the big sports and entertainment stars use Twitter to stay in touch with their legions of fans. Chances are they know about dissident groups tweeting to coordinate protests or to avoid authorities. Unfortunately, they probably also have a largely dormant Twitter account.
My comeback (and likely yours) is always about the same: First, users have gone well beyond tweeting what kind of jam they had on their toast. We share genuine information. Second, I do business with people I met on Twitter.
The latter was no more apparent than on Sunday while showing our agency's new Social Media intern around our little town. Why Sunday? Simple, "Kelly the Intern" is living at our house for a month between college semesters. (No, we don't usually house employees.)
I met Kelly on Twitter. She was doing work for the non-profit AgChat Foundation, which was founded by people who also met on Twitter. (I'm on the board.) After being impressed by her work, I scanned her profile. She was looking for an internship...and one thing led to another.
I've been in this business for more than a couple years. I've had "skin in the game" as they say, for almost 20. Never has anything had such a big impact in such a short time as Social Media. That's not news to most agency owners, of course. Believe it or not, it still is news to many, many business owners.
Recently, I wrote a post on reverse mentoring on my agency blog at Charleston|Orwig. The idea is for business veterans to be mentored by young employees, the so-called digital natives. That's not why I have an intern living at my house. It is, however, one more example of how work lives are changing. The pace of change has never been faster.
For those of you who think you are on the leading edge of all this, the truth is, you are not. You are likely barely keeping up. For those who are frustrated and overwhelmed, you are certainly losing ground every day.
For me and our agency, the best we can do is to fully embrace the new world. What the heck, you might just end up with an intern standing at your kitchen counter peeling carrots for dinner.