Rob Cottingham's blog | Social Signal

For a lot of organizations, grasping the potential of social media is a big step... but actually implementing it is even bigger. How do you bridge the chasm between "You know what we should do?" and "So how do we do it?"

In the hubbub of our various projects, we've let two three interesting developments in our local social media scene slip by unremarked.

I've been very lucky with panel discussions: I've never been on a dud. I hear the horror stories (and I've witnessed them from the audience): moderators who can't read the room, panelists who run way long and pitch their company relentlessly, and chemistry that just doesn't work.

A few days ago, we stepped out of the Social Signal offices for a little brainstorming over lunch. We'd usually do that sort of thing here - we had our walls done with whiteboard paint for exactly that reason - but a change of scenery seemed to be in order.

About 90 minutes later, we returned, only to find this on our walls:

I delivered a presentation today to the folks at Metro Vancouver (the level of government formerly known as the Greater Vancouver Regional District) on the social web and local government. It was a great group, with lots of lively discussion.

One of the members of the audience introduced herself to me as a "techno-peasant". It's a term I hear a lot from people, often with a rueful smile. But something about the term has always rubbed me the wrong way - and today I realized what it was.

Alex posted yesterday about YouTube views as a proxy for the relative support for political candidates. According to this piece at TechPresident, the same may be true of the relative support for new and old(er) media: