Friday Fun: Log Out, Shut Down, Roll Out

As you know on Friday, it's typical to keep it humorous here. This is a viral campaign from last year from Sony VAIO - a real tongue in cheek ad campaign for a laptop, with a reverse psychology spin. Listen closely and ask yourself, Should I be in this meeting? Am I one of these people?

Social media has changed the face of communications.The basic tenets of what we do in PR are still there - things like face-to-face interactions, building relationships, interesting credible content, for example. What social media has done is enhance how we do these and create more opportunities where and how we do them.

Personally, it has changed how I communicate with friends and how we share with each other, but I still like a good girls' night out, and dinners and vacations. It has just made experiences more colourful, in more ways than one. Yet, I don't think I am eligible to be part of this group.

Are you able to log out, shut down and roll out?

Social Media: The other ball and chain

I remember the days when you could go to dinner with your girlfriends or go to the mall or take a nap, without a camera phone in your face. You would get home and not have to worry that already you had been tagged by Mary in 8 photos. Life used to be so simple then. You socialised without socialising. That is, you went out and enjoyed the concept of going out and catching up and having a good time and did not get lost in the tomorrow of "I need to share this with my network" or "This will make a great profile photo". These days Facebook does not even need an invitation or to RSVP. It's the ultimate stormer, wedding crasher and boldfaced guest.

You went out and did not tweet where you were. You just went out, stayed out, did uour thing and came back home. You did not have to worry about being caught on video in the supermarket or on the promenade. You did not have to ask a friend not to post that photo or tag you, or email them to ask them to take a photo down. One friend did not want to share the best day of her life with thousands of strangers and asked her friends who had posted her wedding photos not too long after the wedding, to please take them down. Some people do have the love affair with social media, some people don't.

I remember when not everything was everyone else's business.

I don't go everywhere with a camera or use my camera phone to catch every single moment. Shucks. My camera seems to only leave the house when I am on my way to the airport and some work-free environment. I enjoy hearing the jokes and tales from friends and not missing a single detail because I was foraging around in my bag for my camera phone so I could upload yet another photo to Facebook or Twitter, or make a video. I do have albums on Facebook, of vacations and special occasions or random crap, but I don't have scores of albums to memorialise every car trip, every birthday party, every dinner, every beach lime I have ever gone to. I don't sit at the dinner table with my smartphone checking tweets or emails. I like looking into the faces of friends and hearing their laughter and being wholly part of the moment. And if I don't have tons of photos to remember the occasion, or some means to let my network know that the steak was spectacular, that's okay.

I am old school that way. And though part of my job is social media - a big part - it's not my life either! Are you bound by the old ball and chain when it comes to social networks? Don't get me wrong - we all know the impact it has had on us and I will be the first to admit that social media is awesome awesome awesome. But oh gosh, who is the master and who is the "servant"?