Blogs

With a vast and growing landscape of powerful and free tools now available, from Facebookto YouTube, is it still worth the time, trouble and expense of building a website? We explore some pluses and minuses.

However interesting and useful, the emerging capabilities of geolocation empowered applications present a thicket of social issues. These issues belong not just on the desks of legislators and in the dockets of courts, but also in the minds of those who advance and embrace these new tools.

Whether posting a story, tweeting a thought, listening to the wisdom of the crowds, asking for money, or making a commitment to online friends and followers, the values a company, nonprofit or association must be ever-present in their communications -- no exceptions. Lack of consistency in word and deed undermines the messages that thoughtful communicators work so hard to craft. A case in point is an organization's online privacy policy.

Even with the baggage of an existing Facebook culture and tools that seem to reinforce a cocktail party atmosphere, much can change and in short order. For example, Facebook Apps offer a platform capable of bringing rich new types of engagment into the mix, changing in the process how individuals an groups use the medium. As individuals and organizations experiment with Facebook as a medium, new uses may also emerge. In the face of intensifying innovation, the role of Facebook and other online tools will shift, hit new plateaus, create new best practices, only to change again. The constant is that the properties of the tools and culture of the community will shape Facebook and other media as they emerge.

Today's best practices for online communication may soon seem as quaint as the recommendations of 20th century advice columnists like Emily Post, Ann Landers and Abigail Van Buren. How can we keep ahead of the curve?

Though Twitter is powerful, convenient and ever-ready as a tool for broadcasting messages to fans and followers, communicators might be well advised to resist the temptation to share, share and share again.

Back when interruptions came only from phone callers, occasional knocks on my cubical door and the alluring sound of a nearby ice-cream truck, noted author and teacher Tom Demarco wrote about the impact of disruptions in ones stream of thought.  Not a pretty sight, said Demarco, that as few as three interruptions a hour can skuttle all productivity. As the problem of information overload has increased in an age of pervasive communication, is there anything we can do to manage or mitigate the flow?

Contrary to the immense buzz around Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and scores of other technology widgets, tools are not what make social media all the rage. Bigger news is a communications paradigm shift, away from broadcast as a means for getting a message out, and toward a more networked model of communication.

As 21st century communicators, we thrive on a wealth of tools for collecting and analyzing data. But contrary to popular misconception, questions are more powerful than advanced technology, data and tools.

Where the conventional wisdom once held that the young are our early adopters, oldsters are beginning to help drive the pace of technology-based change.