Comments on: The Social Media Vanguard

By: Once In A Generation Opportunities For Intrepid Collaborators? | Sharing at Work

Tue, 18 Nov 2008 16:11:48 +0000

[...] If you want to get out in front of today’s wave of community enablement opportunities you’ll have to find your own path just like Poirier did. His “diagnostic labs” are doing a great job of putting the [...]

By: Daniel J. Pritchett

Daniel J. Pritchett — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 02:46:22 +0000

Thanks for sharing your story. I've been thinking a lot lately about the right college programs and career tracks for people interested in taking advantage of social media and I'm not sure there's one right answer. Can we really expect universities to keep up with the pace of development in this sector? I'm not sure how they could do so while serving their obligations to more traditional theory and practice.

Maybe it's best just to study one of the disciplines that most readily lends itself to SM and then learn the rest on the job.

By: Connie Bensen

Connie Bensen — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 23:55:06 +0000

Thanks Daniel for including me in your list. Rohit Bhargava's book points out how important our back stories are for marketing & branding but it's so much more than that! It explains who we are & how we came to be.

My education is in teaching. Most recent brick & mortar experience was almost a decade of building community, marketing & PR in a public library system. I supervised 7 libraries ranging over an 80 mile area. Shifting to online work was a natural. I started as an evangelist for ACDSee & then they hired me full time. My sister & I created a community at http://www.digiscrapinfo.com providing resources & customer service. Moving forward I shifted to contracting & now provide services to Network Solutions, Awareness Networks & am teaching community manager classes. Thanks for starting this conversation!

By: Daniel J. Pritchett

Daniel J. Pritchett — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 14:40:15 +0000

Thanks for reading! Do you have any other insights or stories about the different fields and interests that lead people to social media? I imagine your work in marketing communications exposes you to a lot of people.

By: Valeria Maltoni

Valeria Maltoni — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 11:36:00 +0000

Thank you for the kind mention, Daniel. In the post that will go up today I mention Louis Gray. His is one of the blogs I read regularly. Funny how these things go, isn't it? You and I must have been on the same wave-length.

By: Daniel J. Pritchett

Daniel J. Pritchett — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 06:49:19 +0000

Mary,

Your law-centered perspective on KM makes you a great ambassador to the wider world of social media professionals.

I share your hope in the liberating power of these tools to get introverts to share their valuable insights. For the past three years I have socialized much less than I ought to, and my continuously expanding interest in social media has now spread beyond the web and into a lot of enjoyable real-life experiences. Have you attended any exciting conferences or meetups recently in your capacity as a practitioner of law-based KM?

By: Daniel J. Pritchett

Daniel J. Pritchett — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 06:02:47 +0000

Your work in the Memphis entrepreneurship scene deserves mention! It would've been too easy to make this post a roll call of the web's most read blogs; we owe it to each other to trumpet lesser known but no less valuable local collaborators.

By: Eric Mathews

Eric Mathews — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 05:41:14 +0000

Thanks for including me in the mix. I'm honored. — Eric

By: Mary Abraham

Mary Abraham — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 04:50:36 +0000

Thanks for the mention, Daniel. I'm honored to be listed with John Tropea.

One of the things that drives law firm knowledge managers to social media tools is the hope that the technology will help lawyers overcome their natural introversion to the point that they increase their level of knowledge sharing. It would be interesting to see if other introvert filled professions have similar experiences with social media, collaboration and knowledge sharing.

- Mary

By: Daniel J. Pritchett

Daniel J. Pritchett — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 23:46:12 +0000

Thanks for the tip, Neal. Can you tell us what your background is and what
needs and experiences drove you to adopt social media?