The reason I haven't posted lately is because I've been in Halifax at the Canadian Public Relations Society National Conference in Halifax, Nova Scotia. I'd like to start off by saying that Halifax is one of the most beautiful cities in Canada. It was my first time visiting any of Canada's maritime provinces and I was quite impressed. The people were friendly, the city was walkable, the buildings were nice
Maybe I've just spent too much time in a concrete wasteland over the past year.
The conference itself was great, but I was disappointed when during Joseph Thornley's presentation less than half of the communicators in the room said that the used Facebook. A handful even knew what Twitter was, and only a slightly larger group raised their hands when asked if they wrote a blog. I'm sure that the session was inspiration for Joe's post about how social media authorship is mandatory for credibility as an advisor.* Similarly, I question why the CPRS Toronto website is so often out of date, and why they can't just switch to a blog format. Since the CPRS members are supposed to the creme de la creme of Canada's professional communicators, shouldn't their society reflect the latest trends and advances in communications?
Part of the reason there are so many "social media experts" out there these days is that it doesn't take much to rise above the average level of social media knowledge. Compared to the many great and otherwise brilliant PR pros that I might at the conference, I'd pretty much say that anyone who reads this blog (or any blog) could be considered a social media expert.
To those Halifax Twitterheads that invited me to the Monday-night Tweetup: Thank you! I'm sorry I couldn't make it, but lobster dinner at the shore club was calling my name.
Last week we also had the most recent installment of Thirsty Thursday, a monthly gathering of Toronto's most brilliant young communicators. The weather was great, and we totally took over the patio at the The Central. Not only was there free foosball, but the waitress had an incredible memory for drink orders.
If you're not already a member, join the Thirsty Thursday Facebook group, and we'll invite you out to the next one.
In fact, since our friend Michael Allison is going to be in town, some of us will probably be getting together late next week.
Now it's time for an afternoon of playing soccer and watching the Euro cup (I'm cheering for Sweden, but mostly just hoping that Germany loses).
-Parker
*Why does my spell check not recognize the word "advisor?"