This weekend, Seesmic founder Loic Le Meur inspired an interesting debate about the value and purpose of public relations in an age of many-to-many, community-centric entrepreneurship. It all started with this Tech Crunch article, PR secrets for startups, which led to Loic’s uncompromising response. You can find the rest of the conversation here - I especially like Scoble’s comments about going to the source and creating “experiences.”
Though I see the value of arguments on both sides, I have also concluded that PR - like marketing, advertising and publishing respectively -must come to terms with wired paradigms or sink ever deeper into a tarpit of traditional corporate conceit. It’s very simple: adapt or perish.
This is the first avatar I created in Second Life. It really doesn’t look anything like me but it was the best I could do with the tools available.
When I first arrived in SL I faced a question common to professionals venturing into virtual spaces: Who am I this time? The conventional response is to choose an appropriate, professional-looking representation of yourself.
But what does professional and appropriate mean in virtual spaces where the possibilities for self expression are almost unlimited?Particularly when:
A) Traditional professional norms are increasingly out of date/changing
B) Virtuality allows for forms of individual expression not possible in real life
C) If Steve Jobs gets to wear jeans to a conference why can’t you and I?
Check out the trailer for (the great) Jim Munroe’s latest lo fi sci fi film Infest Wisely. From the site:
“A new, chewable nanotechnology lets people take pictures with their eyes and cures cancer. But the early adopters find out it’s hard to uninstall something after it’s spread through their bloodstream… INFEST WISELY is a lo-fi sci-fi no-budget feature in seven episodes, each with a different director and intertwining characters.Starting May 22th, we will be releasing one of the seven episodes that make up INFEST WISELY every Tuesday. People who subscribe to our RSS feed, podcast or mailing list will find out first.”
Gunter Grass’ message is especially critical to those early-to-late majority users (i.e.,everybody) who may not know the value or importance of their voice in the battle for a many-to-many democratic internet.
This post seeks to address why this is with resources and activities designed specifically for early-late majority users to find and use their voice for digital democracy.
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