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The Social Media Dunce
That’s My Opinion
By Bob Robinson
We’re on Facebook! But don’t ask me to Twit…
Back in the late 90’s I was dragged, screaming and yelling, into the
21st Century. I said then that the web was not for me. It was the days
of dial up. It was new and clunky. It took forever to log in… then it
took forever to find anything, or to load my email.
However my job required it. So I did it.
Not quite 10 years earlier I was dragged, screaming and yelling, into
the Desktop Publishing age. My business was Public Relations &
Graphic Design. Graphic Design required typesetting capabilities, so my
company was also a typesetting service. It was an “aside,” but it was
also the company’s “bread and butter.” I hired and trained employees to
do it for me.
With the advent of Desktop Publishing, typesetting (or ‘cold type’)
went the way of the old ‘hot type’ that started to disappear in the
1950s. And my $50,000 typesetting system was pretty much junk. However,
as a businessman, I knew that I had to make the switch or go under.
I made the switch.
I had a couple of my biggest years after that, some of it with Desktop
Publishing but the vast majority of it with two large marketing and
public relations clients. The people I’d trained to do typesetting had
difficulty comprehending the additional components of WYSIWYG (What You
See is What You Get) on-screen layout and I had difficulty maintaining
my 100 hours a week schedule – managing clients and handling the
various components of marketing, public relations and graphic design -
while trying to commute 50 miles twice a day on California freeways.
I closed up shop (you can’t sell a business that can only be serviced
by its owner) and went to work for a publishing company.
For the next eight years I saw the Internet, computer and DTP
industries advance from dial-up to cable, and the lightning fast (but
temperamental) SCSI peripherals to clunky, slow USB. I also began
fooling around with web pages (html code).
I’d have resisted that, too, except I was given no choice. Internet and
the web presence became the official mode of communication in the
Digital World.
In the last ten years I’ve watched computers evolve to laptops, and
cell phones evolve to Blackberries, I-phones, I-pads, I-books and a
whole bunch of other things that I don’t have a clue how to operate…
and no desire to learn. Then there’s the “Cloud,” which really scares
the heck out of me.
One of my classes loves to tease me about my total ignorance of the
latest “technology.” They told me they were going to buy me an I-phone
with apps (whatever they are). I told them I wouldn’t use it.
Considering the finances of most students, I’m not too worried about it.
Now we have social media. Facebook, Linked-in, Twitter, Blogging… you
name it. I set up a blog when I ran for Commissioner, or should I say I
had a friend set it up. I refuse to Twit (Tweet) and I have no clue
what Linked-in is about, nor do I care.
I set up a personal Facebook account, which I systematically ignored.
When Facebook changed to its latest confusing format, I said the heck
with it and haven’t been back since.
Then I set up a County News Online Facebook account to promote our
daily postings. I wanted a business account, and after several
disastrous attempts discovered I didn’t want it after all. All you can
do is “like” it. No interaction allowed.
I post the day’s stories each night. It has grown our readership.
That’s a good thing. Then I finally figured out how to link the web
site to the Facebook page…
Now you have it. I spent over 600 words telling you that you have an
interactive forum to post comments about CNO stories. All you have to
do is click on the Facebook button (top right of the home page) and
post your comments.
I hope you will also “friend” us… whatever that means.
I admit I’m a social media dunce, but I understand marketing. I’m
trying. Just don’t ask me to Twit.
That’s My Opinion. What’s yours?
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