I participated recently in a panel discussion centered around the use of social media and other ‘web 2.0’ type things in public relations for PRSA-SENE. I had a great time speaking, and was in great company to boot. It’s still quite often a tough sell to bring new ideas into corporate communications - both from a ‘what will my job be then’ and a ‘how do I sell the management on this’ standpoint.
Issues abound from loss of control (arguably that has already happened) to consistency of message (but if you as a company are not participating in the conversations taking place online in various blogs and forums, there is no message, consistent or not), to simply picking the right approach in order to avoid technological missteps and bad online etiquette.
Brian Reich was moderating, and I have to say that he is extremely well-spoken, bright and in general a really great guy. I look forward to bumping into him again. My fellow panelists were John Speck and Lois Kelly - two truly interesting and intelligent people. Both Brian and Lois have books out that are at the top of my reading list (Brian co-authored Media Rules! and Lois Kelly authored Beyond Buzz).
Two hours literally flew by, and I don’t think we really scratched the surface with some of the really great questions we had from the audience. I hope we can plan some sort of follow-up event as I think it would be truly informative. All in all a great experience.
(Thanks to my colleague Angie Moncada at (add)ventures who shot and edited the video)