Anti-social Networking

Just leave me alone.

I am being overtaken by technology. No, I am not a Luddite.

Far from it. I have
devoted my career to technology.

I majored in electrical engineering, writing off any chance
of having fun at party school Boston University.

I have spent the past twenty years or so in various areas of
tech. Although my job descriptions have
not been technical (after a short stint as an engineer), I have worked exclusively for technology
companies in sales, marketing and PR before joining Fusion PR, a tech PR
agency and my current employer, in 1998.

I have always prided myself at being as equally adept with
technology marketing and marketing technologies, i.e. understanding and using
technologies that impact marketing.

I am most definitely a people person, which is why I have
focused on the marketing side rather than on pure technology.

Yet there is nothing that made me feel older than when I sat
down with my 14 year old daughter last night to take a look at the latest
social networking tools.

This was not to police her activities online, although I was
pleased that she so willingly took me into this world, and that I did not find
borderline content on hers or her friends’ spaces. It was to prepare an educational seminar for
the agency on social networking technologies.

My head spinned as I took in the MySpace and Facebook
experiences. So many links to click
on. So many friends to connect
with. So much content to view.  It was actually very disorienting,
and hard to know where to start and how it all works.

The experience was akin to going to a rock concert and
noticing everyone there is twenty years younger.

Kids are very comfortable in this world, and take to it
naturally, which I suppose is the natural order of things.

Although I feel a professional obligation to experiment with
these new technologies that can have applications for PR and marketing, it really seems like
quite an effort.

Isn’t social technology an oxymoron? I routinely ignore Plaxo requests to update
contact records. I eschew LinkedIn
invitations. And somehow, although I
feel a professional obligation, I don’t see myself jumping into the world of
social networking anytime soon.

Perhaps I am not quite the people person I thought I was.