SYN - is there anyone out there?
SYN-ACK anyone?
I've really missed hearing your views via comments to this blog. For three years I thoroughly enjoyed writing this blog and then all of a sudden I simply stopped.
I felt bad and meant to explain but never did. The more time passed the harder it seemed to explain why. Some people wondered if I'd been fired. Thankfully that wasn't the case :-)
This feels like my first post in that it's perfectly possible that I'm the only person who'll read this post.
Two things happened which resulted in me stopping blogging.
The main reason was that I took a bold and rather scary step. I left a job I loved. Being an Evangelist. I never liked the name but thoroughly enjoyed working with many people both within and outside the company to find solutions to challenging technical problems, writing about and presenting the solutions. After four years as an Evangelist I "jumped ship" to become a marketeer! The main reason was to push myself far outside my comfort zone and also to find out first hand where the following three forces smash into one another :-)
- technology
- public relations
- social media
The other reason I stopped blogging was that I found myself so distracted by Twitter that I "no longer had time" to blog. As you may know from your own experience, the are many benefits of participating in micro-blogging including almost instant interaction and concise, often (though not always) thoughtful interaction. Blogging is absolutely complimentary as it's great to explore subjects in greater detail and it provides more of a statement of record - old content remains easily discoverable.
My Twitter tag is @actionlamb which is a nickname my peers gave me when I spent a month in Seattle back in 2002 when I joined the company. It stemmed from my enthusiasm for extreme sports coupled with my surname. I share both social and business thoughts on Twitter.
The more I tweeted, the more I put off blogging. I had planned to explain my change of role to you with the hope of encoraging you to join me on my journey of exploration in marketing. Given I had so much to learn in my new role (Technology Audience PR Manager) I found I didn't even tweet much in the first few months.
It's now over two years since I last spent time with many of you. It's far too long and I hope to connect again.
I have thoroughly enjoyed learning about marketing and specifically the art of Public Relations. I remain true to my Yorkshire roots and continue to be a straight talking chap as many of my peers do. Seeing where social media influences the traditional media and how Public Relations is evolving to remain relevant. As in the World of technology there are people who add value and some who detract. I've had the honour of meeting some incredible PR professionals who really "get it". Sadly I've also seen the "snakeoil" peddled by a minority of lazy PRs and seen their spam.
Eighteen months ago I came across a debate where the "social media experts" were pitched against "the traditional media" - thankfully each of the participants agreed that the whole idea was nonesense! Social and "traditional" media are not mutually exclusive. Many World class journalists and TV presenters are as passionate about the wonders of social media as I am.
I think it's incredible that ANYONE with access to the Internet (I appreciate there are still far too many people who still don't have access) can "live the social graph"/contribute to the conversation.
I hope you find this blog useful going forwards. I'm going to contribute to it on a regular basis once again and hope to hear from and learn from you in time.
Thank you.
Steve