I used the internet for the first time in 1989. It was incredible to me that you could jump on a server across the world by just typing a few keystrokes. But it was primitive – your options were limited to ftp, email, and usenet and the community of users was very small. Later, in 1999, I read about a wise group of internet visionaries who had nailed 95 theses on the virtual front door of the internet. They called their movement the Cluetrain Manifesto (link – www.cluetrain.com) and their predictions about how the internet would radically alter the conversation between company and customer were hard to believe. Today, the power of search engines, blogs, Facebook, Twitter and others has shown them to be internet prophets.
I enjoy helping organizations adapt to this new reality by teaching them how to “get found” on Google, what it takes to engage readers on a blog, and how to maximize the power of social media tools like Twitter and Facebook.